Appellate Results Archive

Partner Stephen Caine was called in at the eleventh hour to represent the client in a request for a new trial. The case involved a negligence claim in which a hired party coordinator fell from an unprotected balcony attached to an “architecturally significant” house owned by our client, resulting in moderate soft tissue damage and three transverse process fractures of spinal spurs. The jury returned with a liability verdict of $1,686,493.46 (which was mostly made up of noneconomic damage award of $1,187,400); reduced by 33% for comparative fault, which created a net award to Plaintiff against our client of $1,179,859.96.

In an appeal involving new evidence supposedly discovered after entry of judgment and allegations of procedural irregularities, the WSHB team rallied for the clients on appeal and successfully defended the trial court's grant of a summary judgment motion and denial of plaintiff's subsequent new trial motion. WSHB's Nick Gedo (Of Counsel in the Glendale office) vigorously represented the clients, securing an affirmation of the judgment in their favor.

In a contentious case involving allegations of negligent maintenance, inspection and security against an apartment complex owner, the Appellate Court of New Jersey affirmed the lower court's decision granting the defendant's motion for summary judgment. WSHB’s team, including partners Jill Mucerino and Kelly Waters, successfully argued that the property owner had no duty to prevent injuries sustained by plaintiff tenant resulting from a physical altercation in the complex’s parking garage and, thus, was not liable. They argued that the altercation was not foreseeable and, therefore, was not within the scope of the duty owed by the owner to plaintiff. The Appellate Court, conducting a de novo review of the trial court’s decision, agreed.

The Superior Court of Pennsylvania has affirmed the granting of summary judgment by the Court of Common Pleas of Monroe County, in favor of out-of-possession residential landlords who were represented by Andy Kessler, a partner in WSHB’s Philadelphia Office. The Plaintiff, who was 22 years old at the time of the event, attended a birthday party at a residential rental property and later in the evening sustained catastrophic injuries when he was savagely beaten by a mob who “crashed” the party.

Attorneys Kelly Waters and Jill Mucerino of WSHB's New Jersey office recently secured several appellate rulings enforcing arbitration clauses in favor of WSHB's clients. In one case the New Jersey Appellate Division reversed the Trial Court's denial of our motion to compel arbitration. In two separate matters that were consolidated on appeal, a different panel of the Appellate Division affirmed the Trial Court's grants of our motions to compel arbitration.

In a commercial landlord-tenant subrogation action by the landlord and commercial business association’s insurer, Partner David Webster recently obtained a published appellate opinion affirming the granting of a Summary Judgment Motion in favor of our client, The Wooden Duck, a long-standing furniture manufacturer and seller in Berkeley. The subrogation action followed a building fire that destroyed our client’s leased warehouse space and other property and personal property of three other entities. Plaintiff insurer issued a property damage policy to the Association that owned and maintained the common area building components and the landlord that leased space to our client. The underlying Motion for Summary Judgment was brought under California’s case-by-case anti-subrogation law which provides that lessees cannot be sued for subrogation as deemed implied co-insureds under the policy based on specific language in the lease agreement.