A number of states have what are sometimes known as filial responsibility laws which obligate adult children to pay for their parents’ medical and nursing-home care. In Pennsylvania, nursing home lawyers have been known to pursue lawsuits against out-of-state children who are estranged from the parents in question. (Monica Yant Kinney, “If mom can’t pay, adult child must”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jul. 12).
More on these laws: Jane Gross, NYT; Everyday Simplicity; Do Ask Do Tell.
Brian Shean, Sr., 37, of Derry Township, Pennsylvania, was killed by a falling tree in February, as he, his father Terry, and a third man attempted to keep it from toppling. Shean family lawyer Jason Hines “said Monday that the lawsuit was only a means to ensure the future of the Sheans’ son, Brian Jr.” [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]
If you’re not reading my other legal site, Point of Law, here’s some of what you’re missing:
That’s Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell on his no-bid hiring of a Texas plaintiff’s firm (and generous political donor) to sue Johnson & Johnson on contingency fee [Wall Street Journal editorial; Point of Law background here, here, here, here (Arkansas, and Bailey Perrin Bailey’s generous donations to the Democratic Attorney Generals Association (DAGA)), here, and here; ShopFloor].
P.S. And more reporting on the case from John O’Brien at U.S. Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine.
The Philadelphia officers’ excuse for their raid on Jose Duran’s bodega was the same as their excuse for other bodega raids: he was selling grocery zip-lock bags, and Pennsylvania law makes it unlawful to sell containers that a seller reasonably knew or should have known will be used to store drugs. The cops methodically snipped the wires to seven or eight security cameras around the store, and Duran said nearly $10,000 in cash, cigarettes, batteries and other goods then mysteriously vanished from the store. [Philadelphia Daily News and more via Metafilter; earlier] More: Radley Balko.
The jury convicted the veteran pol on all counts after a five-month trial. The case raised allegations of lawyer misconduct, and we have previously covered the bare-knuckled tactics Fumo used to protect some of his friends in the Pennsylvania courthouse machine.
Former state Superior Court judge Michael Joyce, of Erie, “was sentenced this afternoon to nearly four years in prison.” Joyce’s bogus claims of neck and back pain after a rear-ending had netted him $440,000 in settlements; “the judge filed his claims on judicial letterhead, [Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian] Trabold said, and referred to himself as a judge 115 times in the letters.”