News in Brief

In response to client needs for one-stop legal shopping, Margolis Edelstein has merged with a five-partner Harrisburg defense litigation boutique.



The firm, Badowski Banko Kroll Kronthal & Baker, handles medical malpractice, automobile and general liability work. Margolis managing partner Michael McKenna said the new branch office will stay temporarily at the Badowski firm’s Camp Hill office until suitable accommodations within Harrisburg can be found – hopefully within a year.



McKenna said the firm targeted Harrisburg as an expansion site because several of the firm’s insurance carrier and self-insured clients were looking for statewide representation. Margolis Edelstein, which already had offices in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Westmont, .J. opened one in Scranton last year and has plans for another in Altoona in the near future.



Margolis Edelstein is not the only insurance defense firm to employ this statewide coverage idea. Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin has 10 Pennsylvania offices, including one in Newtown Square, Doylestown and Norristown. McKenna does not see his firm going that far.



The Scranton office started last year as a two-attorney office and now has six. McKenna said he would like to use the five-partner base to achieve similar growth in Harrisburg, namely with associates.



The five attorneys, Robert Badowski, Stephen Banko, Rolf Kroll, Barry Kronthal and Lauralee Baker-Starr, are all veteran local litigators.



The addition of the five partners give Margolis Edelstein 124 total lawyers spread across the firm’s five offices.

Phila. Jury Returns $8 Mil. in Fen-Phen Case

After deliberating for five hours, a Philadelphia jury returned an $8 million verdict against the manufacturer of fenfluramine, the fen in the fen-phen diet drug combination, and a doctor who prescribed it to a popular jazz musician who developed primary pulmonary hypertension from taking it.



Jazz artist Shirley Scott settled with American Home Products for an undisclosed amount of money before the start of the trial. Defendant Dr. Leonard Guinta filed a cross-claim against American Home.



The jury found the drug manufacturer and the doctor each 50 percent liable, making Guinta responsible for only $4 million of the total verdict.



The trial before the 12-member jury was before Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Joseph D. O’Keefe and lasted for nine days. Philadelphia solo practitioner Philip H. Rush represented Scott in the case. Beatrice O’Donnell of Duane Morris & Heckscher represented the doctor.



O’Donnell said her client will be filing post-trial motions in the case.



According to Rush, Guinta prescribed the fen-phen combination for Scott from September 1995 to July 1997.



“The claim against [Guinta] was that he not only prescribed the drug beyond the two weeks recommended by the manufacturer, but he prescribed it for years,” Rush said. “And he prescribed it until she called him and said that she had heard on CNN when she was in Italy touring that there were side effects.”



In January 1997, Scott began to report shortness of breath to Guinta, and he eventually said that the cause was asthma, Rush said. By October, she became extremely sick.



At this point she went to a Chester County hospital where she was diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension and referred to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital for treatment.



Rush said he showed evidence at trial that showed that an appetite-suppressing drug such as fenfluramine was associated with the cause of primary pulmonary hypertension. The study presented at trial involved another appetite suppressant, aminorex.

Attorneys Try to Revive NCAA’s SAT Use