In Guiser v. Seiber the Superior Court quashed the appeal, in part, because the appellant did not wait for the trial court to rule on post-sentence motions and enter judgment. But the Court did review an order granting injuctive relief because a party has a right to appeal immediately from such relief. The Court held that the … Read more
The 3rd Circuit reviewed jurisdiction in civil RICO actions in St. Luke’s Health Network, Inc. v. Lancaster General Hospital. The court held that the plaintiffs stated a claim on which relief could be granted because they alleged that the defendants’ misrepresented the amount of funds they were due under Pennsylvania’s Hospital Extraordinary Expense Program, thereby … Read more
Several plaintiffs sued a for excessive sound exposure. The defendant manufactures fire engine sirens. Defendant’s main tie to Pennsylvania is that it is registered as a foreign corporation in the Commonwealth; otherwise it has minimal ties to the Commonwealth. When the defendant objected to jurisdiction in preliminary objections, plaintiff tried to justify jurisdiction in more … Read more
The defendant was convicted of first-degree murder in 1994. His most recent of many PCRA petitions was on appeal in the Superior Court when he filed a a petition seeking DNA testing of evidence under section 9543.1 of the Post Conviction Relief Act. The lower court dismissed that petition for two reasons. First, it dismissed … Read more
The defendant file a petition seeking collateral relief against his criminal convictions pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act. He claimed in his PCRA petition that his sentence to lifetime registration under Act 10. But he filed his PCRA petition about four years after his judgments of sentence became file. The Superior Court held that … Read more
Williams, an inmate in state prison, filed a petition for review in the nature of mandamus in the Commonwealth Court’s original jurisdiction. He alleged that his rights were violated when he was fired from his job in the prison’s kitchen. Williams was fired after an officer discovered several pounds of sugar concealed in Williams’s boots. The … Read more
After inspecting AmeriCare’s fleet of emergency medical vehicles, the State’s Department of Health, Office of Emergency Medical Services (OEMS) suspended the plaintiff’s license to operate. Before exhausting administrative remedies, AmeriCare filed an order to show cause for injunctive relief under the New Jersey Civil Rights Act, N.J.S.A. 10:6-1 to -2 (CRA). The trial court granted … Read more
After being convicted by a jury of two bank robberies, defendants appealed their lawyers’ decisions to stipulate that the banks were federally insured and, as a result, the federal courts had jurisdiction to hear the cases. The defendants claimed that they wished to contest the case at every level and that their lawyers stipulated to … Read more
In this en banc, the panel confronted a defendant who helped supply a firearm to her boyfriend, who eventually used that firearm to kill a police officer in a shootout. The boyfriend was killed in the gunfire. While her state case weaved its way through the courts, she was charged — and eventually pled guilty … Read more
#TRO #PreliminaryInjunction #Jurisdiction #Habeas In a fast-moving case, several immigration detainees filed a habeas corpus petition seeking their release based on the COVID-19 pandemic and the conditions of the jails that they were housed in. Without offering the government a chance to respond, the district court issued a temporary retraining order demanding the release of … Read more