Attorney Profiles

G. Jay Habas serves as the Managing Attorney of the Erie office of Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman & Goggin. The areas of the law he is most active in are employment law, workers' compensation and professional liability. To date, he has represented employers in litigation and employment matters in over 300 cases. He has handled over 1,000 workers' compensation cases and defended professional liability cases for 25 years.

Jay has represented small, medium and large businesses, service agencies, and public entities in employment-related litigation at administrative proceedings and in state and federal courts. He is also experienced in employment law matters on behalf of employers, including cases involving civil rights, discrimination, wrongful termination, retaliation, harassment, wage and hour violations and workers' compensation. He has also represented insurance agents and brokers, real estate professionals, attorneys, accountants and health care professionals in professional liability claims.

Jay has taken 10 cases to trial, all of which were tried to a jury. He obtained eight defense verdicts, and the other cases ended in a verdict or settlement favorable to his clients.

He has spoken on employment- and litigation-related topics to various industry, professional and employer groups. Recently, Jay organized and lead the discussion at a very successful Workers’ Compensation Seminar in Erie for clients involving more than 75 attendees and speakers on various workers’ compensation and related employment topics. He is the co-author of the firm’s monthly publication “What’s Hot in Workers’ Compensation” and the popular year-end summary of the "Top 10 Cases in Workers’ Comp."

Jay is actively involved in a number of professional organizations in his areas of expertise, including the Lake Erie Claims Association, Insurance Club of Erie, the Human Resource Management Association and the Pennsylvania Self-Insurers' Association.

He attended Gannon University in Erie, where he received the college's highest honor for a graduating senior, the Medal of Honor. Jay graduated from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1985, where he was on the staff of the Notre Dame Journal of Legislation.

Following graduation from law school, Jay worked for national and regional defense law firms on complex personal injury litigation, including medical and professional malpractice, products liability, premises liability, catastrophic incidents, and employment litigation.

Jay is involved in various community organizations, including the Insurance Club of Erie County, the Human Resource Management Association, Lake Erie Claims Association, American Inns of Court and the Erie County Bar Association.

Significant Representative Matters:

• Successfully resolved high damage medical malpractice lawsuit involving the death of a three-month-old child where damages exposure was seven figures, with clear liability and potential punitives exposure for low six figures prior to trial, on the basis of supportive expert testimony.
  
  
• Won appeal of toxic chemical exposure workers' compensation case where the judge found an employee died of cancer due to exposure from benzene in workplace and awarded substantial, lifetime widow's benefits in excess of $500,000. Award reversed on appeal to Commonwealth Court on basis of the argument that widow's claim was barred by application of statute of limitations.
  
  
• Successfully appealed denial of hearing loss claim in workers' compensation case through extensive use of after-acquired evidence to demonstrate workplace exposure to noise did not rise to level of OSHA threshold limit.
  
  
• Use of medical experts from seven different disciplines to mitigate exposure in medical malpractice claim involving three-month-old child.
  
  
• Developed expert testimony from occupational medicine, toxicology, neurology, neuropsychology, industrial hygiene, and psychiatry to defend alleged toxic chemical exposure in the workplace.
  
  
• Obtained dismissal of a federal civil rights action on behalf of the County of Erie in which a grandmother asserted a constitutional right to the care and custody of a grandchild against the interests of an adoptive family with whom the child was placed by the court. Successfully argued that no court has recognized such a right on behalf of the grandparents.
  
  
• Successfully obtained summary judgment in the U.S. District Court, and upheld on appeal, of a federal civil rights claim by a father alleging that a local children and youth agency negligently filed a report of suspected child abuse against him. The court agreed that the local agency acted consistent with the Child Protective Services Law and did not cause a deprivation of the parent’s rights.
  
  
• Persuaded plaintiffs to voluntarily withdraw a complaint, which alleged that a County agency intentionally sabotaged the plaintiffs from adopting children placed in their custody, on the basis of absolute immunity under the Pennsylvania Subdivision Political Tort Claims Act.