HARRISBURG – A five-bill effort to reduce Medicaid fraud in Pennsylvania through a state False Claims Act is already meeting with opposition from business groups, health care providers and civil justice reformers who say the state’s proposed method will be at the expense of patients and taxpayers and mostly benefit lawyers and whistleblowers.
Michael E. Baughman, a partner with Pepper Hamilton and a co-chair of the firm's Higher Education and First Amendment and Newsroom practices, will be speaking at the PA House Judiciary Public Hearing on House Bill 95 and Senate Bill 95 Anti-SLAPP.
HARRISBURG – A Pennsylvania Senate Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LBFC) report on the effects of changing current medical malpractice litigation venue rules is nearly finished and may be released in February, its executive director said.
HARRISBURG – Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro wants to supplement regulations which are part of a state consumer protection law, but law scholars and business groups are concerned that he is trying to create a state anti-trust statute in doing so.
HARRISBURG – The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office is proposing to amend the rule standards contained in the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, an action it claims is necessary but which some observers say is happening without legislative input.
MEDIA — The city of Chester has responded to a lawsuit from the Chester Water Authority by filing its own complaint, alleging the authority is a “patronage mill.”
William A. Fetterhoff has joined Scranton-based Myers Brier & Kelly, LLP (MBK) as Of Counsel. Fetterhoff will be resident in the firm’s Harrisburg office.
HARRISBURG – Testimony hearings continued Wednesday within the Pennsylvania Senate’s Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LBFC), featuring insurance and medical college representatives who say current medical malpractice venue rules should not be reversed.
HARRISBURG – This week, the Pennsylvania Senate’s Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LBFC) is holding a two-day set of hearings discussing the impact of reverting current medical malpractice litigation venue rules could have on the access to health care and maintenance of health care systems statewide.
PHILADELPHIA – A renewed debate over the rules governing venue for medical malpractice litigation statewide was sparked over a letter written to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania late last year, asking the body to re-examine the issue. It’s a letter the public may never see.
HARRISBURG – State Sen. Anthony Williams isn't commenting much about a lawsuit filed against him by his former constituent services worker who was fired a few weeks before Christmas after she says she had to take time off for breast cancer treatment.
PHILADELPHIA - A Pennsylvania hospitals association is glad that a rulemaking process that would have overturned reforms implemented early this century has slowed.
PHILADELPHIA – State opposition to the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law of Liability Insurance continues to accumulate, as North Dakota recently passed a law striking down the document and Arkansas introduced similar legislation in its state senate.
HARRISBURG – Where it had first been seen as a surprise that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania was considering reversing course on where medical malpractice lawsuits can be filed, it was recently revealed just where the inspiration to reconsider the policy came from.
PHILADELPHIA – Though any action on a Supreme Court of Pennsylvania committee proposal to change venue guidelines governing medical malpractice litigation statewide has been delayed until a legislative group completes a study on the matter, several prominent organizations submitted comments on the proposal before its tabling.
A Pennsylvania Supreme Court committee is proposing a new rule that will help medical malpractice lawyers, but a look at the makeup of the committee shows five lawyers, including its chair, who work at firms that file medical malpractice cases.
HARRISBURG – The Pennsylvania Senate will study whether forum-shopping by medical malpractice lawyers raises health care costs in the areas they target - a move that comes as the state Supreme Court considers allowing those lawyers to file cases in the courts of their choosing.
HARRISBURG – A pair of lobbyist organizations connected to plaintiffs law firm Pond Lehocky Stern Giordano and which sought to defeat Workers' Compensation reform bills were recently found to have violated the state’s Lobbying Disclosure Law and fined by the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission.
On November 15, 2018, the Pennsylvania Bar Foundation and Pennsylvania Bar Association honored Senator Stewart Greenleaf for his “remarkable” forty years of public service, including his thirty years of leadership on the Senate Judiciary Committee.