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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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ATLA publishes Attorney Brigham's Thoughts on Representing Child Victim of Stove Tipover
MARTIN K. BRIGHAM practices law with Raynes McCarty in Philadelphia. The names of the people in this article have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.
After completing her late-night shift at the hospital, her morning chores, and homework for a nursing program, Anna had lunch with her two children and then went to her living room to sit for a few moments. Finally, she thought, a rare chance to put her feet up on a Sunday afternoon. Minutes later, she heard a crash in the kitchen, followed by the screams of her five-year-old son, Paul.
He came running out of the kitchen, tears streaming down his anguished face as he tried to rip off his soaked pants. Anna’s 12-year-old daughter, Alice, followed close behind, pleading for her mother’s forgiveness for not watching her brother more carefully.
As Anna flew to Paul, she glanced into the kitchen and saw that the stove had tipped over. A pot of hot water that had been left on the back burner after lunch was overturned on the floor. She rushed her son into the shower and doused him with cold water until paramedics arrived to take him to a hospital’s burn unit. There, Paul began the long and painful process of medical treatment for third-degree burns to his groin and upper thighs, enduring excruciating pain as hospital staff debrided -- vigorously scrubbed and scraped -- the burned area.
At the hospital, Anna’s daughter told her what had happened. While Alice was getting a drink out of the refrigerator, Paul opened the stove’s oven door and stepped up onto it to see if there were any more boiled hot dogs in the pot. Seconds later, the stove tipped forward and over, causing the pot on the burner to slide off and dump its scalding contents onto Paul’s lap.
The entire incident spanned only a few seconds, but its effects on Anna and her family were devastating and long-lasting. In addition to intense physical pain, Paul suffered lingering emotional and psychological injury. Anna and her daughter were overwhelmed with anxiety over Paul’s condition and felt guilty, believing that they somehow should have been able to prevent his injuries.
Anna also worried about how she was going to pay for Paul’s medical care and how she could keep her job while she devoted herself to helping Paul and her family recover. She felt alone, never imagining that others might have suffered similar ordeals, and she wondered whether she or her children had done something to bring on this awful fate.
While staying with Paul in the burn unit, Anna spoke with another family about her concerns about how she was going to pay Paul’s mounting medical bills. Having heard of my firm’s work on behalf of burn survivors, the family referred Anna to us. When we heard her story, we asked if we could go to her apartment and look at the stove. We wanted to understand why it had tipped over, especially given that Paul weighed only about a third of the stove’s weight. I called the stove manufacturer to report the accident, and the risk/loss manager blurted out, “Oh no, not again!”
A review of medical literature and Consumer Product Safety Commission data revealed that hundreds of families in the United States have suffered the tragedy of a child being burned, crushed, or killed by a stove that tipped over. The paramedic who responded to Anna’s call said that Paul was the seventh stove tip-over victim that she personally had treated in three years.
In 1991, after resisting for years the implementation of any safety measures, appliance manufacturers started to include an “anti-tip bracket” with every stove. This small, slotted piece of metal is screwed into the floor at the back of the stove. One of the stove’s rear legs slides into the slot, anchoring it.
The anti-tip bracket was not the most effective way to prevent stove tip-overs -- a stove redesign would have been better. But by choosing that safety measure, manufacturers hoped that they could transfer blame and liability for tip-over accidents to installers who -- like the people who had installed Anna’s stove -- either failed to put the brackets in place or did so incorrectly.
When we showed Anna the warning placard on the back of the stove, she was at first relieved; what had happened to Paul was not her fault. Then she became angry. Why had her landlord’s maintenance crew ignored the warning when they installed the stove just three months before the accident? And why hadn’t the manufacturer placed the warning on the front of the stove where she could see it? There were no acceptable answers to these questions.
My partner and I filed suit against the manufacturer and the landlord on behalf of Paul, Anna, and Alice, each a victim of the defendants’ negligence. Paul and Alice regularly came into our office, and my daughter took them to the local children’s museums as we met with Anna. On weekends, I would sometimes take the children to see a ball game.
We arranged counseling for Alice. We explained to her that other children had been hurt in the same way that Paul had, and that his accident was not her fault. We helped enroll Paul in a summer camp for young burn-injury survivors who we knew wouldn’t make fun of his scars by calling him “alligator legs” as others had.
We put together a settlement brochure that included videotaped segments of Paul’s excruciatingly painful therapy, as well as admissions we elicited from the manufacturer’s employees during the depositions about how long they had ignored stove tip-over accidents and how they were aware that landlords rarely installed the anti-tip brackets. The defendants’ cavalier attitude toward so many horrific accidents persuaded the court to let us seek punitive damages.
The case settled long before trial, providing the financial resources that the family desperately needed immediately and for the long term.
It is rewarding to know that our work has helped bring positive change in the lives of Anna and her children. Anna no longer worries about how to pay Paul’s medical bills, and she and the children have moved from their small apartment in a high-crime neighborhood to a new home with a large, grassy yard on a safe, tree-lined street.
Anna is especially pleased to know she has helped prevent other tip-over accidents from happening. As part of the settlement, the manufacturer added a warning to the front of its stoves, and the landlord anchored all the stoves in all its buildings. Anna and I continue to speak out about her case, lobbying government agencies to enforce the manufacturers’ and installers’ duty to take action to prevent tip-over injuries.
Although much in the family’s life has changed, I am also pleased that some things -- especially with regard to the children -- have remained the same. At Anna’s request, we never told the children they were part of a lawsuit. They now have trust funds and annuities supervised by corporate fiduciaries, but they do not know about them and will not until they are adults. The children still do chores to earn their modest weekly allowances. And I still take them out to ball games.
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