Category: 2013

By: Kevin L. Connors, Esquire Patricia Burns Horn, Esquire Civil Procedure in Pennsylvania is controlled by the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure, referred to as the Pennsylvania Code, available at www.pacode.com. The PRCP controls all aspects of civil litigation to include: Rules of Construction, dealing with time computation and principles of interpretation; Business of the Courts,… Read more »

By: Kevin L. Connors, Esquire In 2013, ConnorsLaw joined NRRDA, the National Retail and Restaurant Defense Association, as a member firm. NRRDA was originally formed in 2008, in order to allow businesses that are focused on retail and restaurant operations to marshal their respective resources to include, there is the key, their preferred defense counsel, to… Read more »

By:  Lisa A. Miller, Esquire The Commonwealth Court reversed the part of the Board’s Order denying the Suspension Petition, affirmed the Board’s Order affirming the grant of the Penalty Petition and assessment of penalties, and remanded for further fact finding related to the Claimant’s rate of pay for the light-duty position that Employer offered, and… Read more »

By:  Lisa A. Miller, Esquire The Commonwealth Court affirmed the Decision of the Appeal Board which affirmed the Decision of the WCJ granting the Defendant’s Petition to Review Compensation Benefit Offset (Review Petition) which asserted its entitlement to subrogation against Claimant’s Third Party recovery. Claimant argued that Defendant’s subrogation rights should have been extinguished pursuant… Read more »

By:  Lisa A. Miller, Esquire The Commonwealth Court affirmed the decision of the Appeal Board suspending Claimant’s disability benefits.  The Board held that it was Claimant’s status as an unauthorized alien, not his injury that caused his loss of earning power. On June 16, 2007, Claimant suffered a work injury when he fell from a… Read more »

By:  Lisa A. Miller, Esquire The Court affirmed the Decision of the Appeal Board which denied the Claimant’s request for a reinstatement of temporary total disability benefits. The Claimant sought a reinstatement after Defendant declined to give him a job.  The Board affirmed the holding of the WCJ which noted that because Claimant had previously… Read more »

By:  Lisa A. Miller, Esquire The Commonwealth Court affirmed the Decision of the Appeal Board and WCJ which denied the Claimant’s Review Petition to add a left shoulder injury to the description of his work injury more than two (2) years after the approval of a Compromise and Release Agreement, and also denied Claimant’s Penalty… Read more »

By Kevin L. Connors, Esquire  The very recent decision of the Pennsylvania Superior Court in McWeeney v. Estate of Janet R. Strickler, published on January 30, 2013, hinged on whether the Plaintiff, a permissive user of her fiancé’s car, could either be characterized as a “named insured” or as an “insured” under the personal automobile insurance… Read more »

By Kevin L. Connors, Esquire “No matter where you go, there you are!” If the above quotation, mouthed by the character of Buckaroo Banzai, played without lips by Peter Weller, later infamous as the RoboCop character, when Buckaroo, playing with  his rock band, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, tried to talk Penny Pretty, played by Ellen… Read more »

By Kevin L. Connors, Esquire 2012 closed out with an important ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, dealing with delay damages in uninsured motorist benefit cases, in Marlette v. State Farm, decided on December 28, 2012.  The issue raised and resolved was, after a jury trial in an uninsured motorist benefits case, whether a Plaintiff was entitled… Read more »