Verdicts & Rulings Archive

Recent Defense Rulings:

• John Flounlacker, Michele Thorp and Scott McCarroll were successful in obtaining summary judgment on behalf of a municipal police department in a civil rights case wherein a college student died.  The police department was accused of having a policy, custom, or practice of directing liquor licensees to restrain people until the police arrived to make an arrest.  (June 2006)
• Evan Black and Hugh P. O'Neill (Harrisburg) were successful in prevailing on a Motion for Summary Judgment resulting in the trial court dismissing Plaintiff's claims of punitive damages against a Defendant physician.
• James K. Thomas II and Hugh P. O'Neill (Harrisburg) were successful in defending the Entry of Summary Judgment in favor of a local hotel before the Pennsylvania Superior Court.  In this case, Plaintiff's decedent, a 14 year old boy, drowned in a hotel pool.  The drowning was unwitnessed and the pool unguarded.  The Superior Court adopted the trial Court's holding that the hotel did not owe a duty to the 14 year old who was a registered guest, and, in the alternative, found that Planitiff's decedent was a trespasser.
• Evan Black and Hugh O'Neill (Harrisburg) were recently successful in prevailing on a Motion in Limine resulting in the preclusion of Plaintiff's expert optometrist in a medical malpractice case against a Defendant ophthalmologist.  The Court's ruling was based upon Section 512 of the MCARE Act (40 P.S. Section 1303.512).  The legal argument was based on the Superior Court holding in Wexler v Hecht, 847 A.2d 95 (Pa. Super. 2004).  The Court Order precluded the expert ophthalmologist from offering testimony regarding the standard of care of an ophthalmologist or medical causation.  The ruling subsequently led to the Plaintiff discontinuing the case in its entirety.