Ben Present

November 15, 2011 | The Legal Intelligencer

Penn State University will not be able to invoke sovereign immunity as a defense in the wake of the child sex abuse scandal, lawyers have told The Legal, in what court watchers are calling inevitable civil action calling for massive amounts of money against the university.

By Ben Present

8 minute read

June 25, 2013 | The Legal Intelligencer

In an area of criminal law that has drawn some recent scrutiny from appellate courts in Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case over whether an officer's request for a man's identification turned the underlying encounter from a "mere encounter" into an "investigative detention."

By Ben Present

5 minute read

July 19, 2011 | The Legal Intelligencer

Now that the Fair Share Act has passed, bringing sweeping changes to the state's joint and several liability common-law doctrine, several plaintiffs lawyers across the state converged on a similar notion:

By Ben Present

7 minute read

May 07, 2013 | The Legal Intelligencer

In the most recent of a growing body of opinions on social media discovery in Pennsylvania trial courts, a Lackawanna County judge has denied a husband and wife's motion to compel the Facebook username and password of a paralegal working for a title insurance company the couple is suing.

By Ben Present

7 minute read

February 01, 2012 | The Legal Intelligencer

The speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives has filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to rule that it would be unconstitutional to conduct the state's upcoming elections under decade-old House and Senate lines.

By Ben Present

5 minute read

June 18, 2013 | The Legal Intelligencer

A controversy surrounding the Lackawanna County guardian ad litem program and Danielle Ross, once the county's sole guardian, took a pivotal turn in February when Ross was indicted on two counts of tax evasion and two counts of filing a false federal income-tax report.

By Ben Present

7 minute read

September 11, 2012 | The Legal Intelligencer

The state Superior Court has upheld a murder conviction and sentence in a case where defense counsel's allegations against the trial judge have at times seemed to overshadow the crime itself.

By Ben Present

5 minute read

January 23, 2012 | The Legal Intelligencer

About 200 paramedics who work for the Philadelphia Fire Department may continue as part of the collective bargaining unit for uniformed department employees, the Commonwealth Court has ruled, deciding the "Fire Service Paramedics" were still firefighters under Pennsylvania's Act 111.

By Ben Present

5 minute read

April 24, 2012 | The Legal Intelligencer

A unanimous panel of the Commonwealth Court has reversed a pair of products liability judgments totaling close to $3 million, holding a trial judge overlooked that the plaintiff declined to call an expert witness.

By Ben Present

6 minute read

December 18, 2012 | The Legal Intelligencer

The state Superior Court has granted a full discharge to a man and woman whose home was raided unlawfully by State Police officers.

By Ben Present

7 minute read