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The following is a list of our most recent events. Click on the links for more information or contact us at events@raynesmccarty.com
01/28/2009
Jim Mundy and Gerald McHugh Make "Report 100" List for Third Year in a Row
The Pennsylvania Report, a premier news source on Pennsylvania politics, for the third year in a row listed Jim Mundy and Gerald McHugh among the Top 100 Most Influential People in State Public Affairs....Details >>
12/01/2008
Pennsylvania Superior Court Rules in Favor of Raynes McCarty Client
Mother, who during her pregnancy, was misled by doctors as to the health of her baby, may hold the doctors responsible for the distress caused her by not being emotionally prepared for a child with severe disabilities....Details >>
11/12/2008
Martin Brigham selected as one of the World’s Leading Product Liability Lawyers.
Marty was nominated by a survey of other prominent attorneys to appear in the 2009 Guide to the World’s Leading Product Liability Lawyers....Details >>
10/29/2008
Raynes McCarty paralegal Donna M. Colarulo, R.P. serving on the Board of Advisors for Widener University’s paralegal training program.
As a member of the Board of Advisors Legal Education Program, Ms. Colarulo participates in panel discussions regarding decisions affecting the curriculum for Widener University’s paralegal training programs....Details >>
10/20/2008
Five Raynes McCarty lawyers recognized by Best Lawyers in America
Best Lawyers in America selected Marty Brigham, Roy DeCaro, Harold Goodman, Jerry McHugh and Stephen Raynes for inclusion in its 2009 edition....Details >>
10/20/2008
Jerry McHugh featured speaker at Pennsylvania Association for Justice Masters Series
Raynes McCarty lawyer Gerald A. McHugh, Jr. was the featured speaker at a PaAJ Masters Series continuing legal education program titled Perspectives on the Critical Components of a Trial....Details >>
10/20/2008
Tim Lawn featured speaker at Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association’s Luncheon Lecture Series
Raynes McCarty lawyer Timothy Lawn will speak at the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association’s November 3, 2008 continuing legal education program titled Proving Difficult Medical Malpractice Issues. ...Details >>
09/01/2008
Philadelphia jury awards Raynes McCarty client $950,000.00 for eye injuries caused by defective plastic flying disc.
After a two-day trial, a jury awarded the Raynes McCarty client $950,000.00 for a laceration to his eye caused by a shard of plastic that splintered from a broken flying disc....Details >>
09/01/2008
Philadelphia jury awards Raynes McCarty client $950,000.00 for eye injuries caused by defective plastic flying disc.
After a two-day trial, a jury awarded the Raynes McCarty client $950,000.00 for a laceration to his eye caused by a shard of plastic that splintered from a broken flying disc....Details >>
04/16/2008
Gerald McHugh and wife Maureen Tate were honored by Friends for Effective Education (FFEE) at the Tribute Medallion Award Dinner on April 16, 2008
The Award recognizes McHugh and Tate’s lifelong dedication to community service, while at the same time raising funds for the St. Francis de Sales Elementary School, in keeping with FFEE’s purpose of providing monetary support to schools that exhibit educational leadership....Details >>
03/31/2008
Regina M. Foley appointed to Philadelphia Bar Association Board of Governors.
Regina M. Foley was appointed to serve a one year term on the Board of Governors of the Philadelphia Bar Association by Chancellor Michael A. Pratt....Details >>
03/21/2008
Regina M. Foley spoke April 9, 2008 at Continuing Legal Education seminar.
Ms. Foley updated plaintiffs’ and defense attorneys alike on recent developments in products liability law at The Dispute Resolution Institute’s Personal Injury Potpourri....Details >>
03/20/2008
Jenimae Almquist named co-chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Advancing Civics Education (A.C.E.) program.
Raynes McCarty’s Jenimae Almquist and co-chair Barbara Potts, are leading members of the Bar Association in a program to provide supplemental civics education to Philadelphia area public school students starting in the Fall of 2008.
...Details >>
02/08/2008
Jim Mundy and Gerald McHugh Make Pennsylvania Report 100
The Pennsylvania Report, a premier news source on Pennsylvania politics, for the second year in a row listed Jim Mundy and Gerald McHugh among the Top 100 Most Influential People in State Public Affairs....Details >>
01/29/2008
Jenimae Almquist serves on Philadelphia Bar Association panel on work-family balance.
Raynes McCarty attorney Jenimae Almquist spoke at the program titled “How to Have It All - The Career and the Family,” organized by the bar association’s Women in the Profession Committee.
...Details >>
01/24/2008
Roy DeCaro Speaks at Philadelphia Trial Lawyers
On January 24, 2008, Roy DeCaro spoke to fellow trial attorneys about the steps he took to help secure the $5,000,000.00 verdict his client received in a recent product liability trial. ...Details >>
11/28/2007
Jury Awards $2.9 Mil. for Death Stemming from Blood Clot
A Philadelphia jury awarded $2.9 million to the wife of a bariatric surgery patient who died from a blood clot that traveled to his lungs after his post-surgical leg blood clots allegedly went untreated for 10 days. The verdict was in the Legal Intelligencer’s list of the Top 50 Verdicts and Settlements of 2007....Details >>
11/06/2007
$5 Million Verdict Upheld in Phila. Infant Tylenol Case
A Philadelphia judge has upheld a $5 million verdict rendered over a 1-year-old’s death allegedly due to liver failure from an overdose of Infants’ Tylenol....Details >>
09/12/2007
Raynes McCarty Distinguished Lecture in Health Law scheduled for October 9, 2007
Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin, visiting professor of Law at the University of Chicago, will be the featured speaker at the Raynes McCarty Distinguished Lecture in Health Law which is jointly sponsored with Widener University School of Law.
...Details >>
09/10/2007
Best Lawyers ranks Raynes McCarty #1 In Philadelphia Personal Injury Litigation Firms
Best Lawyers in America is the oldest and most widely respected peer-review publication in the legal profession. It has announced its results for 2008, ranking Raynes McCarty as the Number 0ne personal injury litigation firm in Philadelphia, PA. Recognized for individual inclusion in Best Lawyers were: Marty Brigham, Roy DeCaro, Harold Goodman, Jerry McHugh and Stephen Raynes....Details >>
09/09/2007
Marty Brigham presenting at Visual Legal Advocacy Roundtable at Penn Law on October 19, 2007
Marty Brigham will be a featured speaker at the "Visual Legal Advocacy Roundtable" being held at Penn Law School. Marty will discuss his pioneering work on videotape settlement presentations....Details >>
05/04/2007
Federal Judge Lauds Firm’s Donation to Support Center for Child Advocates
Describing it as “an example of our Bar at its best”, United States District Court Judge, Stewart Dalzell commends Raynes McCarty’s $10,000.00 donation to the Support Center for Child Advocates....Details >>
05/01/2007
Marty Brigham honored in world-wide survey
The Legal Media Group ("LMG"), based in London, England, has just announced the selection of Raynes McCarty's Marty Brigham for inclusion in its "2007 Guide to the World's Leading Product Liability Lawyers." ...Details >>
03/15/2007
3rd Circuit Affirms $7.4 Mil. Verdict in Suit Against VA
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a $7.4 million verdict obtained by Raynes McCarty's Jerry McHugh and Regina Foley against the Department of Veterans Affairs stemming from its decision to expel a Delaware County man who suffered from “rage disorder” and just one day later murdered two of his children and two of their friends.
...Details >>
02/16/2007
Top 100 Most Influential People in State Public Affairs
Two Raynes McCarty Attorneys Identified as Top 100 Most Influential People in State Public Affairs...Details >>
02/07/2007
$1,750,000.00 Civil Rights Settlement for Widow of Undercover Officer Killed by Fellow Policeman
On February 2, 2007, Judge Stewart Dalzell approved a settlement by the City of Reading in a civil rights law suit filed by Gerald McHugh on behalf of the widow of a Reading police officer. The undercover officer - Michael H. Wise, II - died on June 4, 2004, when he was struck by a bullet fired by a fellow member of the Reading police force. ...Details >>
01/08/2007
Roy DeCaro and Stephen Raynes selected to be among 500 Best Plaintiff Lawyers
Roy DeCaro and Stephen Raynes were named as being among the 500 Best Plaintiff Lawyers in the United States by the Publication "Lawdragon."...Details >>
12/01/2006
$5 million verdict for child who died from liver damage caused by Tylenol
Roy DeCaro was the lead trial attorney for the family of a one year old child who died from liver failure caused by Tylenol. Mr. DeCaro convinced the jury that the drug company provided misleading and inadequate warnings about the concentration and toxicity of Infants’ Tylenol. The jury awarded the family $5,000,000.00 for the loss of their child. Recently, the trial court rejected the drug company’s request to overturn the verdict. ...Details >>
10/17/2006
Martin Brigham Honored
Martin Brigham received a lifetime achievement award from the Philadelphia area Occupational Safety and Health Project...Details >>
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Infant Death Case Sent to CP Court
By Shannon Duffy
U.S. Courthouse Correspondent
A couple who claim their 1-year old son died as a result of taking Infants’
Tylenol has won the right to pursue their products liability suit in the Philadelphia
Court of Common Pleas now that a federal judge has ruled that the case was improperly
removed to U.S. district court.
In his 14-page opinion in Dunson v. McNeil-PPC Inc., U.S.
District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno found that while the drug’s manufacturer
is incorporated in New Jersey, it must also be considered a citizen of Pennsylvania
because that is its principal place of business.
As a result, Robreno found that McNeil cannot remove a Pennsylvania state
court lawsuit to federal court on the basis of diversity of citizenship.
“For purposes of determining whether there is diversity of citizenship,
a corporation is deemed a citizen of both the state where it has its principal
place of business,” Robreno wrote.
The ruling is a victory for attorney David F. Binder of Raynes McCarty Binder
Ross & Mundy, who contends in the suit that Marquis Matthew Dunson’s
death in March 2002 could have been prevented if Infant Tylenol had carried
proper warnings about the risk that slight overdoses could cause liver failure.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, there are more than 30,000
instances each year of overdoses of Tylenol, or acetaminophen, among infants
and children.
Infants’ Tylenol is about three-and-a-half times more concentrated than
Children’s Tylenol, and studies have shown that parents sometimes confuse
the two. Those studies prompted McNeil to introduce new labeling for Infant’s
Tylenol in 1997.
McNeil’s lawyers—Laurie E. Wady and Bruce W. Clark of Dechert—argued that the case should remain in federal court because McNeil is a citizen
of New Jersey only. In their brief, the Dechert lawyers noted that the company’s
entire board of directors and many of its senior executives are located in New
Jersey.
Robreno found that such evidence would be strongly persuasive if the court
were applying the “nerve center” test for determining a company’s
principal place of business.
But under the law of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Robreno said,
courts must apply the “center of corporate activities” test.
Under that test, adopted by the 3rd Circuit in its 1960 decision in Kelly
v. U.S. Steel Corp., courts must ascertain “the headquarters of day-to-day
corporate activity and management.”
Although the location of the board of directors is one factor in the test,
Robreno found that Kelly instructed trial judges to focus on the “business
by way of activities” in determining a company’s principal place
of business.
“In other words,” Robreno wrote, “a corporation’s
principal place of business is not ‘where...final decisions are made on
corporate policy,” but rather where the corporation ‘conducts its
affairs.’”
Robreno found that the “most significant” of the Kelly
factors is the location of “headquarters of the day-to-day corporate activities
and management decision.”
McNeil argued that three New Jersey managerial employees comprise its board
of directors and have been delegated responsibility for managing McNeil-PPC’s
operations as a whole.
But Robreno found that “others are responsible for managing significant
portions” of McNeil-PPC’s day-to-day operations.
“It is true that the three executives who comprise the McNeil-PPC board
of directors and who exercise overall policy-making responsibility are located
in New Jersey. But as counsel for McNeil-PPC acknowledged at the hearing, these
executives are not responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company,”
Robreno wrote.
Robreno found that the McNeil division that manufactures Infant Tylenol has
12 vice presidents and a president, all with offices located in Fort Washington,
Pa.
As for the McNeil-PPC work force, Robreno found that 51 percent of its roughly
3,400 employees are located in Pennsylvania, while only 267 employees are located
in New Jersey.
The company’s physical locations also point to Pennsylvania as its principal
place of business, Robreno found, since “the largest division in terms
of number of employees and net sales, has administrative offices and a manufacturing
facility in Pennsylvania.”
Likewise, Robreno found that McNeil owns real estate in Pennsylvania worth
more than $124 million, compared to New Jersey real estate valued at about $23
million. Additionally, the company’s “tangible property” in
Pennsylvania is worth more than $217 million, compared to less than $40 million
in New Jersey.
The two McNeil divisions located in Pennsylvania also accounted for about
63 percent of the company’s sales last year, Robreno found, while the
two divisions located in New Jersey accounted for just 25 percent of the company’s
net sales in 2003.
McNeil’s lawyers argued that Senior U.S. District Judge Clifford Scott
Green already decided the question of McNeil’s principal place of business
in his 1995 decision in Mears v. McNeil-PPC.
But Robreno found that while Green had held that McNeil’s principal
place of business was New Jersey, the ruling was no longer good law because
the facts have changed.
“Even under the relatively undeveloped record in that case, it seems
clear that Mc-Neil-PPC’s corporate organization and geographic focus has
changed significantly since Mears was decided over eight years ago.” Robreno
wrote.
Refusing to rely on Mears, Robreno found that the issue
of McNeil’s principal place of business “is a question of fact...that
must be examined on a case-by-case basis.”
After applying the Kelly factors, Robreno concluded that
McNeil had failed to satisfy its burden of showing that its day-to-day corporate
activities and management decisions are not located in Pennsylvania.
“Because the defendant has failed to show that the plaintiffs and the
defendant are citizens of different states, there is no diversity of citizenship.
Therefore, this case must be remanded to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas,”
Robreno wrote.
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