Pennsylvania Wrongful Death Laws

Some people refer to isolated ice patches as black ice. All that really means is it’s a clear patch of ice, and if the concrete is black or the asphalt is black it appears to be black. So often times you can’t see those ice patches. But once they turned to slash and you’ve drive through them, often times they are visible. So, if you know somebody who has been in a car accident after encountering black ice or an ice patch you need to call us. Because we will get the right investigators, the right engineers, we’ll get our lawyers to the scene and we will walk the scene, drive the scene, videotape the scene and we can determine whether the condition is one that is the fault of someone or simply just snow falling.

By: Michael Rosenzweig

Goretzka versus West Penn Power

One of the cases that I’m proudest of is a case called Goretzka versus West Penn Power. It’s a case that arose in 2009 when a power line fell in the front yard of the home of Carrie and Mike Goretzka in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. The power line fell on a clear sunny day and it fell on top of Carrie Goretzka, a beautiful 39-year-old mother of two. She was electrocuted in front of her two daughters and her mother-in-law.

Litigation Philosophy

We took this case on behalf of the family, and we didn’t just take the case to get fair compensation for Carrie Goretzka’s family arising from her tragic and horrific death. We took the case in order to clean up West Penn Power because they had a systematic problem at their company with respect to the installation and inspection of splices on power lines. We would not settle that case unless the company took substantial remedial measures to fix their problem. That means inspecting their 26,000 miles of power lines, that means replacing the defective splices, that means retraining their linemen, and that means taking all steps to assure that their power lines aren’t going fall on or near Western Pennsylvanians.

Litigation Implications

We got the Goretzka’s fair compensation. I tried that case personally along with Kila Baldwin and Dominic Guerrini of Kline & Specter. We got a $109,000,000 verdict for the Goretzka family. That verdict was so well obtained and so bulletproof from appellate attack that West Penn Power settled the case just seven weeks later for $105,000,000, just $4,000,000 less than the amount of the verdict. And that’s not all we did. We got the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to impose remedial measures on the power company. Force the power company to reinspect their power lines. Force the company to fix the power lines that were improperly installed. Force the power company to retrain their linemen. Force the power company to pay a fine. The PUC even went beyond that. They’re now seeking remediation all across Pennsylvania with power companies all across the state to make sure that they inspect their power lines, so their lines won’t fall, and they also have formed a new investigative unit to see why their power companies are responding properly when there’s a tragic incident, and provide the PUC with the facts giving rise to that incident. The Goretzka case is a prime example of what a lawyer and a lawyer’s team can do to make a recovery, not only for their client, but for the entire community. And not only achieve financial compensation for a plaintiff, but to achieve a societal benefit, a safer society. In this case, a society where it’s much less likely that a power line can fall and kill or injure a citizen of this state.

By: Shanin Specter