Sean X. Kelly of Marks, O’Neill’s New Jersey office recently obtained summary judgment in a New Jersey attorney malpractice case. Our client represented a plaintiff in a medical malpractice action and obtained a substantial settlement on the client’s behalf. However, the underlying client failed to repay a worker’s compensation lien asserted against the settlement. The workers compensation carrier filed suit seeking to recover the unpaid lien from our client, the attorney. We filed summary judgment arguing, in part, that our client had no duty to a workers comp carrier to protect or repay the lien.  The trial court agreed with our argument and dismissed all claims.

Sean X. Kelly of Marks, O’Neill’s New Jersey office recently obtained summary judgment in an attorney malpractice case, which alleged that an attorney was negligent for failing to fully explain the terms of a settlement agreement to a client.  Our team filed a motion seeking to strike plaintiff’s expert,  arguing that the report and testimony constituted a baseless net opinion. The trial court held an evidentiary hearing.  After cross-examination, the Court struck the experts testimony agreeing with our position that the expert misstated the standard of care and that there was no evidence in the record that the plaintiff would have fared better at trial.  In the absence of an expert, the Court dismissed the case with prejudice.

J. Mark Pecci, II of Marks O’Neill’s Philadelphia office was successful in having Preliminary Objections sustained in Philadelphia County. Defendant, a New Jersey bar, was sued by a Plaintiff estate for a death which occurred in Philadelphia. Preliminary Objections were filed by the bar seeking dismissal of the case for lack of personal jurisdiction. The Preliminary Objections argued that the bar did not maintain significant contacts with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for jurisdiction to be appropriate. The Philadelphia Trial Court sustained the preliminary objections and dismissed the claims against the bar. 

Patricia Fecile-Moreland of Marks, O’Neill’s Philadelphia office was successful in obtaining summary judgment on behalf of their client in a wrongful termination case brought pursuant to the Pennsylvania Whistleblower Law (PWL). The case centered around the plaintiff’s contention that her former employer fired her on the basis of her meeting with government investigators regarding her employer’s internal operations, and on the basis of certain complaints of unlawful activity she allegedly lodged during her employment. The Motion for Summary Judgment argued that plaintiff failed to establish that she had actually lodged any protected complaints under the PWL, and that she had further failed to show that her termination was actually caused by any protected activity under the PWL in which she allegedly engaged. Ultimately, the Court agreed that plaintiff had failed to establish the requisite causation between her alleged protected activity and her termination, and summary judgment was awarded in favor of our client as a result.