Welcome to your Tuesday morning round-up of stories in today’s edition of The Legal Intelligencer, which also includes this week’s edition of Pennsylvania Law Weekly. All of the links below will take you directly to today’s stories, or you can head straight over to The Legal’s homepage. (Some stories may require registration or a paid subscription.)
The top story in today’s Legal is U.S. District Court Judge C. Darnell Jones II of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania looking at the Defense of Marriage Act’s validity in a Cozen O’Connor benefits disputes. As Gina Passarella writes, the dispute is between the parents of a deceased Cozen O’Connor partner and her wife. Both sides provided briefs on the constitutionality of DOMA but de-emphasized it, instead focusing on the terms of Cozen O’Connor’s benefits plan.
Also above the fold on Page 1, reporter Amaris Elliott-Engel writes that prosecutors in the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex-abuse case want to present expert testimony on the process sexual abusers of children use to “‘groom’” their victims.
Below the fold on Page 1, Gina Passarella writes about the ongoing dispute between Elliott Greenleaf and a former partner. The firm has amended its complaint against the ex-partner and his new firm, Stevens & Lee, for his alleged remote access to the firm’s files. It now includes the theft of more files via portable drives and the misappropriation of escrow funds.
In more Regional News on Page 3, Amaris Elliott-Engel writes that a federal judge has ruled that a French firm must comply with federal discovery rules.
As always, our People in the News section is on Page 2, and the top stories from our sibling publications across the country make up the Page 4 National News section.
In a Litigation column on Page 5, Howard J. Bashman writes a guide to delays on appeal, wondering if there is an appellate traffic jam ahead.
In a Real Estate column on Page 7, Martin J. Doyle and Ross E. Bruch write about the number of different ways a recent state Superior Court case on judgment liens can be instructive.
Today’s lead story in PLW is the state Supreme Court hearing oral arguments last week in a case that deals with a last-minute jury substitution. As reporter Zack Needles writes, a principal juror in Bruckshaw v. Frankford Hospital, a medical malpractice trial in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, was inexplicably replaced with no notice to the attorneys or the judge.
Below the fold on Page 1, reporter Ben Present writes that the state Supreme Court also heard oral arguments last week about whether a Bucks County School District’s board of directors had effectively forced out the school’s tax collectors by lowering their pay rates.
On Page 3, Ben Present writes about a workers’ compensation case for which the state Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week, in which a woman who belatedly applied for several jobs listed in a labor market survey had work “available” to her for the purpose of her employer’s request to modify workers’ compensation benefits.
There’s much more inside this week’s PLW, including Samuel C. Stretton’s Ethics Forum, in which he discusses the ethics of judges using social media; a commentary on Family Law by Andrew D. Taylor, in which he writes that the doctrine of paternity by estoppel is hanging on by a thread; a sex-abuse case in which a step-grandfather was determined to be a “perpetrator”; and the W-2 forms of public school employees are not public records, according to a Commonwealth Court ruling.
If you have questions or comments about any of today's stories, or our coverage as a whole, we invite you to e-mail any of the reporters directly. We hope you'll enjoy today's Legal.
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