Catastrophic Claims Litigation

We obtained a defense verdict on behalf of one of the Philadelphia region’s largest hospitals and two of its Emergency Department physicians after a six-day jury trial in a complex and extremely emotional case involving the death of 7-year-old child. Allegations of negligence surrounded the failure to admit and perform a urine drug screen on an 18-year-old who presented high on synthetic marijuana or K2. We argued that the doctors appropriately performed numerous exams, tested and monitored the patient until he achieved clinical sobriety. The patient was discharged, then 22 hours later smoked more K2 and within two hours strangled his 7-year-old sister to death. 

We were successful in having all claims against our client’s hotel dismissed. This case involved deeply distressing allegations of sex trafficking and abuse by the plaintiff’s mother, occurring when the plaintiff was a minor. The claims against our client’s hotel were brought under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) and Florida law. While the court was unequivocal in acknowledging the tragic and serious nature of the plaintiff’s allegations against her abusers, it ultimately found that the legal claims against our client were not supported by sufficient factual allegations to state a cause of action under either federal or state law. The court had previously dismissed the original complaint without prejudice. However, upon review of the amended complaint, the court agreed with our renewed motion to dismiss and concluded that the plaintiff failed to plausibly allege that our hotel knowingly participated in a trafficking venture or maintained a continuous business relationship with the traffickers. The amended complaint alleged only a single instance of trafficking at our client’s hotel and asserted that the conduct was so blatant that hotel staff should have recognized it. The court found this insufficient to support a claim under the TVPRA. Additionally, the court found that the allegations did not meet the high legal threshold required to sustain a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress under Florida law.

We secured a motion for summary judgment in a significant workplace injury case involving a Laidlow claim. The court ruled that the plaintiff had failed to establish that his employer had committed an intentional and malicious act sufficient to circumvent the workers’ compensation exclusivity provision.

By Order dated April 5, 2023, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania refused to review the Superior Court’s affirmance of a 2021 nonsuit obtained by Jack Delany in hotly contested litigation stemming from the death of a construction worker. John Hare and Shane Haselbarth handled the appeal along with Jack. The Supreme Court’s ruling ends more than five years of litigation that arose from the construction worker’s death while he was involved in the Pier 78 renovation project on the Delaware River in Philadelphia. The plaintiff sued the general contractor and others involved in the project and ultimately settled with the general contractor for $10.5 million. The general contractor then pursued a contractual indemnification claim against Jack Delany’s concrete subcontractor client on the Pier 78 project. The indemnification claim included the $10.5 million settlement plus approximately $1 million in attorneys’ fees.   The case proceeded to trial in 2021 and, at the close of the general contractor’s case-in-chief, Jack moved for and was granted a nonsuit on the basis that the general contractor was the deceased construction workers’ statutory employer pursuant to the five-element test set forth by the PA Supreme Court in McDonald v. Levinson Steel, 153 A. 424 (Pa. 1930). The case was especially notable because, rather than retaining an attorney to address the reasonableness of the amount of the underlying settlement, which is typical, Jack retained an economist to explain that, based upon his analysis of comparable cases, the settlement amount was excessive. The general contractor appealed the nonsuit. In an unanimous decision dated September 30, 2022, the Superior Court affirmed. The Supreme Court denial of allowance of appeal brings the lengthy litigation to an end.