Category: Fall 2008 Office Newsletter

A Pennsylvania National Guardsman recently tried without suc- cess to avoid criminal liability for driving under the influence by claiming that he was immune from arrest. Pennsylvania law provides that officers and enlisted military service members cannot be arrested “except for treason or felony” while they are “going to, remaining at or returning from” any […]

Disabled Pennsylvania school children can qualify for occupational therapy even if they choose to attend private school. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently addressed this entitlement in a lawsuit brought by the parents of a kindergarten student who suffers from muscular and visual impairments. The local public school district evaluated the child and decided that he […]

Recently, court documents were uncovered from a successful civil case involving some notorious nineteenth-century defendants who were better known for avoiding the legal consequences of their acts: Jesse and Frank James. Not surprisingly, the case against the James brothers stemmed from one of their signature activities, a bank robbery. During an attempted bank robbery by […]

An injured worker with a physician’ s prescription for massage therapy was denied coverage for the prescribed treatment, while another injured worker without any prescription was awarded a wheelchair-accessible van. What made for the different results? No Massage Therapy The worker who received massage therapy had been injured on the job when he strained his […]

When a Pennsylvania car dealer clashed with his township zoning board over his use of portable searchlights, he found that the law was not on his side. The car dealer wanted to use portable searchlights to “call attention generally to the business locations” and occasionally to highlight promotional events. The local zoning board banned the […]

When the child of separated parents was killed in an automobile accident, the parents both filed claims against their automobile insurance companies, with very different results. The child died after he was struck by a car while he was attempting to cross the street in front of his mother’ s home. The child resided primarily […]