The Legal Intelligencer Blog

The Judiciary Is Afloat in Stormy Seas, Circuit Judge Tells Law Students

By Saranac Hale Spencer
Of the Legal Staff

The judiciary is often referred to as the “third branch” of the federal government.

But U.S. Court of Appeals Judge D. Brooks Smith of the Third Circuit, in a speech to Penn Law students this week, retold a joke told by one newly elected member of the House that would have given the federal courts a demotion.

There are three branches of government – the executive, the House and the Senate – said the new legislator at a meeting with a few federal judges, Smith recalled as he warned students, with a not-too-heavy tone, of the issues facing the judiciary.

The rift between the legislature and the courts, the ever-lengthening and increasingly adversarial confirmation process, and the tightening budget were the three main themes of his speech.

Morale on the federal bench is low, Smith said, not because judges don’t value the importance of what they do, but because they wonder if the other branches of government do.

In an informal meeting between the late Senator Arlen Specter and the judges of the Third Circuit, Smith remembered that a colleague of his asked, “Just what does Congress think of the federal judiciary?” To which Specter, a fixture on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said, “I don’t think they think much about it at all.”

Naturally there is tension between the judicial and legislative branches, Smith said, but it has become too pronounced. He suggested that judges should make an effort to know their members of Congress. Smith told the group that when he was chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, he arranged an annual breakfast for the judges and members of Congress so they could get to know each other.

“Judges and members of Congress need to reach out to each other,” he said, and judges need to try to understand the pressures on representatives if they want the same understanding in kind. “Understanding needs to be a two-way street,” he said.

Citing a recent report from the Brookings Institution that detailed the upward creep in the average length of time between the nomination of a judge to the federal bench and his confirmation by the Senate over the course of the last few administrations, Smith said the line between law and politics is getting blurred. The process is “sometimes a blood sport,” he said.

Historically, once a judge has gotten through the confirmation process, he or she hasn’t had to worry about staffing or workspace, Smith said. But, there are “dark clouds on the horizon,” he said, referring to the dwindling budget for the judiciary.

As it stands now, he said, the courts get only one-fifth of 1 percent of the federal budget and they don’t have lobbyists on Capitol Hill.

Saranac Hale Spencer can be contacted at 215-557-2449 or sspencer@alm.com. Follow her on Twitter @SSpencerTLI..

Voter ID Gets Date for Commonwealth Court Replay

By Saranac Hale Spencer
Of the Legal Staff

Last summer’s closely watched challenge to Pennsylvania’s voter ID law is scheduled for a second round this coming summer.

Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson, who heard the case over the summer and granted a preliminary injunction just before the November election, has scheduled the new trial to start July 15 in Harrisburg.

The initial case volleyed from Simpson’s courtroom to the state’s Supreme Court on appeal and then back to Simpson before the injunction issued.

"I will not restrain election officials from asking for photo ID at the polls; rather, I will enjoin enforcement of those parts of Act 18 which directly result in disenfranchisement," Simpson said in his 18-page opinion in October.

The American Civil Liberties Union, along with other citizens’ groups and the Washington, D.C., firm of Arnold & Porter, brought the suit challenging the law – passed in March 2012 – arguing that it would disenfranchise voters.

The ACLU plans to ask the court to extend the preliminary injunction until the case is concluded, according to a release from the organization.

Saranac Hale Spencer can be contacted at 215-557-2449 or sspencer@alm.com. Follow her on Twitter @SSpencerTLI.

Mandamus Route to Discovery Blocked in ‘Kids-for-Cash’ Civil Case

By Saranac Hale Spencer
Of the Legal Staff

The detention centers in the “kids-for-cash” scandal were denied their mandamus petition by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit today.

After the district judge handling the civil action – filed by parents of the juveniles who were sent to the detention centers by Luzerne County Judges Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. as part of a kickback scheme for which the pair were separately convicted – decided that the youths’ records would be off-limits in discovery, the detention centers sought a writ of mandamus from the appeals court.

“Mandamus may not be ‘used as a substitute for the regular appeals process.’ Petitioners are seeking just such a substitute here,” a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit said in a two-page, non-precedential opinion in In re Pa. Child Care, quoting from the 2004 U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Cheney v. U.S. District Court.

Third Circuit Judges Marjorie O. Rendell, D. Michael Fisher and Kent Jordan said there is a more appropriate avenue for relief available to the detention centers, which is an appeal of the final judgment in the district court.

Saranac Hale Spencer can be contacted at 215-557-2449 or sspencer@alm.com. Follow her on Twitter @SSpencerTLI.

Four Judges Re-nominated for the Federal Bench in Pennsylvania

By Saranac Hale Spencer
Of the Legal Staff

Four nominees for seats on the federal bench in Pennsylvania are among the 33 people that President Obama has re-nominated for seats across the country during the 113th Congress, which was sworn in today.

Among those who have been re-nominated is Patty Shwartz, a magistrate judge in the District of New Jersey, who was first nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit more than a year ago.

The other three for seats in Pennsylvania are Nitza Quinones Alejandro, Luis Felipe Restrepo and Jeffrey Schmehl. Obama nominated the trio to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in November. That court has another three seats sitting empty with no nominees, making a total of six empty seats in the district.

At the end of December, the Senate confirmed two judges for seats in the Middle District of Pennsylvania that had been empty for years.

“Today, I am re-nominating 33 highly qualified candidates for the federal bench, including many who could have and should have been confirmed before the Senate adjourned,” Obama said in a press release. “Several have been awaiting a vote for more than six months, even though they all enjoy bipartisan support. I continue to be grateful for their willingness to serve and remain confident that they will apply the law with the utmost impartiality and integrity. I urge the Senate to consider and confirm these nominees without delay, so all Americans can have equal and timely access to justice.”

Saranac Hale Spencer can be contacted at 215-557-2449 or sspencer@alm.com. Follow her on Twitter @SSpencerTLI.

Third Circuit Nominee to Wait For New Congress

By Saranac Hale Spencer
Of the Legal Staff

Patty Shwartz, who was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in October 2011, won’t receive a confirmation vote in the 112th Congress.

Shwartz, a magistrate judge in the District of New Jersey, was nominated by President Obama to fill the seat left open in June 2011 when U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Maryanne Trump Barry took senior status.

Having been on the Senate calendar for months, Shwartz’s confirmation won’t be voted upon before the new Congress convenes January 3, according to a Senate aide.

At the end of last month, the senate confirmed two judges for Pennsylvania’s Middle District, which had had those seats empty for years. The month before that, the Senate confirmed three judges for Pennsylvania’s Eastern District. There are three more vacancies in the Eastern District.

Saranac Hale Spencer can be contacted at 215-557-2449 or sspencer@alm.com. Follow her on Twitter @SSpencerTLI. 

Two Philly Firms Sued Over Former Partner's Alleged Fraud

By Saranac Hale Spencer
Of the Legal Staff

The law firms of Blank Rome and Cozen O’Connor are under fire from real estate investors who say that a former partner who worked at both firms cheated them out of millions of dollars on a phony development project, according to media reports. The investors filed a suit in the Southern District of New York this week, according to a report from Reuters.

The investors, led by Berish Berger, allege that Charles Naselsky, who was disbarred last month after having been convicted for an unrelated tax evasion scheme for which he will serve 70 months in prison, conspired with Philadelphia real estate developers to get the investors to put millions of dollars into a project that wouldn’t be able to be built. They claim to be owed $27 million, according to Reuters’ report.

Naselsky isn’t a defendant in the case, but two of the Philadelphia law firms at which he worked are.

Naselsky worked at Cozen O’Connor for four years before joining Blank Rome in July 2006, the year that Berger invested in a development project called River City. The project was billed as being a 12-million-square-foot mixed-use development that would include skyscrapers, according to the report. But in December of 2006, Philadelphia imposed a height-limit that would preclude the 600-foot skyscrapers.

Berger alleges that Naselsky, who was the lawyer for developers Ravinder Chawla and Richard Zeghibe, helped the pair hide the city’s plan for the height ordinance from Berger, according to the report.

In a separate suit stemming from the same project, Berger won a jury verdict of over $34 million from Chawla and other defendants in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 2010 after he alleged fraud. Naselsky wasn’t a defendant in that case and neither were the law firms.

In his most recent lawsuit, Berger alleges that Cozen O’Connor and Blank Rome conspired to defraud him and aided and abetted Naselsky’s scheme, according to the Reuters report.

“We didn’t enter in to any kind of conspiracy to defraud anybody,” said Thomas A. “Tad” Decker, CEO of Cozen O’Connor. The firm intends to “vigorously” defend itself, he said.

“We have reviewed the complaint,” said Kate Tavella, spokeswoman for Blank Rome. “Blank Rome denies any fraud on the part of the firm, and we intend to defend the action vigorously,” she said in a prepared statement.

Chawla had planned to flip the River City property after having bought it for $32.5 million, according to an opinion issued earlier this year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirming the district court’s denial of the defendants’ challenges to the verdict. Chawla then engaged with various other people, defendants in the earlier suit, to coerce Berger to invest in the property, according to the opinion.

Saranac Hale Spencer can be contacted at 215-557-2449 or sspencer@alm.com. Follow her on Twitter @SSpencerTLI.

Fresh Ink: Inside Today's Legal

Welcome to your Wednesday morning round-up of stories in today’s edition of The Legal Intelligencer. 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 this morning is Hershey and other chocolate makers failing to prevent class status from being granted against them. As reporter Saranac Hale Spencer writes, direct purchasers of chocolate candies from the major manufacturers allege they engaged in price fixing.

Also above the fold on Page 1, reporter Amaris Elliott-Engel writes that Philadelphia is contemplating a new model for conflict counsel, seeking “creative and innovative” proposals.

Below the fold on Page 1, reporter Gina Passarella writes that shareholders are being put on par with stakeholders in the new Pennsylvania benefit corporations law.

In more Regional News on Page 3, Amaris Elliott-Engel writes that Montgomery County’s civil legal aid funding has survived through a new process.

As always, our People in the News section is on Page 2, and the top stories from our sister publications across the country make up the Page 4 National News section.

In an Employment Law column on Page 5, Sid Steinberg writes that the enforcement of a union contract was found to be not discriminatory.

In this week’s GC Mid-Atlantic column on Page 7, Lee Udelsman writes that today’s general counsel must be a jack of all trades.

If you have questions or comments about any of today's stories, or our coverage as a whole, we invite you to email any of the reporters directly. We hope you'll enjoy today's Legal.

Fresh Ink: Inside Today's Legal

Welcome to your Friday morning round-up of stories in today’s edition of The Legal Intelligencer. 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 this morning is female lawyers making up less than one-third of attorneys working in the Pennsylvania offices of the state’s 100 largest law firms. As reporter Gina Passarella writes, that number is slightly up from 2011, based on information from PaLaw magazine, but still lower than some expected.

Also above the fold on Page 1, reporter Zack Needles writes that George Zimmerman, the Florida man charged with killing unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, has sued NBCUniversal Media LLC and three of its current and former reporters for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, claiming they edited audio and misreported the content of his 911 call in an attempt to paint him as a “racist and predatory villain.”

Below the fold on Page 1, reporter Saranac Hale Spencer writes that a federal judge has given final approval to a $4 million class settlement with Washington Mutual.

In more Regional News on Page 3, Saranac Hale Spencer writes that the Third Circuit has upheld a $3.6 million wrongful death judgment for a trucking accident.

As always, our People in the News section is on Page 2, and the top stories from our sister publications across the country make up the Page 4 National News section.

In an Environmental Law column on Page 5, Kevin Haroff and Brad Marten write about what to expect in the next presidential term.

In a Real Estate Law column on Page 7, Alan Nochumson writes that the Superior Court has expanded builder’s liability for subsequent purchasers.

If you have questions or comments about any of today's stories, or our coverage as a whole, we invite you to email any of the reporters directly. We hope you'll enjoy today's Legal.

Fresh Ink: Inside Today's Legal

Welcome to your Wednesday morning round-up of stories in today’s edition of The Legal Intelligencer. 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 this morning is the First Judicial District settling its suit over the Philadelphia family courthouse for $4 million. As reporter Amaris Elliott-Engel writes, Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel agreed to pay $2 million, while the firm’s ex-partner Jeffrey Rotwitt’s malpractice insurer, Travelers, agreed to pay $2 million, according to the terms of the settlement.

Below the fold on Page 1, Amaris Elliott-Engel writes that the next chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, Kathleen D. Wilkinson, announced that one of her initiatives will be launching a leadership program to assist young attorneys, women attorneys and attorneys of diverse backgrounds in the profession.

Also below the fold on Page 1, reporter Zack Needles writes that a $3.4 million settlement was reached in the death of a 20-year-old college student who died after drunkenly falling 30 feet over a railing at a fraternity house on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus.

In more Regional News on Page 3, reporter Saranac Hale Spencer writes that a federal judge granted most of the attorney fees requested after an employment discrimination case was resolved with a Rule 68 offer of judgment, despite the defense’s argument that one of the attorneys lacked experience in employment cases.

As always, our People in the News section is on Page 2, and the top stories from our sister publications across the country make up the Page 4 National News section.

In an Intellectual Property column on Page 5, Paul F. Prestia asks if patents are becoming impediments to innovation.

In this week’s GC Mid-Atlantic column on Page 7, Timothy Long and Lauri Damrell write about dealing with complex gender-discrimination issues in the workplace.

If you have questions or comments about any of today's stories, or our coverage as a whole, we invite you to email any of the reporters directly. We hope you'll enjoy today's Legal.

 

Fresh Ink: Inside Today's Legal

Welcome to your Monday morning round-up of stories in today’s edition of The Legal Intelligencer. 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 this morning is the First Judicial District setting out a fact-finding process in the wake of the Traffic Court’s internal report that alleged rampant ticket-fixing for the politically connected. As reporter Amaris Elliott-Engel writes, there will be two separate processes for FJD employees: one will govern employees who technically work for the state and one will govern city-level employees.

Below the fold on Page 1, reporter Zack Needles writes that an Allegheny County trial judge has awarded quantum meruit fees to Pittsburgh-based Meyer, Darragh, Buckler, Bebenek & Eck in a fee dispute.

In more Regional News on Page 3, reporter Saranac Hale Spencer writes that teachers hurt in a game of “donkey ball” are seeking insurance money in a coverage dispute. The teachers fell off donkeys while preparing to play basketball as part of a program at their school.

As always, our People in the News section is on Page 2, and the top stories from our sister publications across the country make up the Page 4 National News section.

In an Antitrust Law column on Page 5, Carl W. Hittinger and Lesli C. Esposito write that the FTC was at full throttle in their year in review.

If you have questions or comments about any of today's stories, or our coverage as a whole, we invite you to email any of the reporters directly. We hope you'll enjoy today's Legal.