District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania — appointed by William Jefferson Clinton
Killmeyer v. Oglebay Norton Co.
District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania · 2011-09-20 · cited 18×
This case is a wrongful death and loss of consortium action in which plaintiff Phyllis Killmeyer, individually and as executrix of her late husband's estate, alleged that asbestos-containing products manufactured or supplied by defendants including Beazer East and Ferro Engineering caused Harry Killmeyer's 1995 death from lung cancer. Ferro moved for summary judgment on grounds that it had been dismissed from the case by a 1996 state-court order, that exposure and causation could not be shown, and that plaintiff was not the real party in interest due to her chapter 7 bankruptcy; Beazer raised similar real-party and estoppel arguments. The court granted Ferro's motion and dismissed it, denied Beazer's motion, granted the bankruptcy trustee's motion to substitute as plaintiff, and ruled that the plaintiff could proceed solely in her executrix capacity because the survival claim belonged to the bankruptcy estate.
proceduretorts & liability
Goodson v. Maggi
District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania · 2011-06-23 · cited 7×
The case involved a pro se plaintiff suing numerous defendants, including attorneys, judges, and social services, alleging violations of his constitutional rights stemming from state court custody proceedings involving his minor children in Pennsylvania and Colorado. The court considered a motion to dismiss filed by defendant Frank C. Kocevar, Esq. The magistrate judge recommended granting the motion, finding that the claims were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine as they sought to challenge state court judgments, and that the plaintiff failed to state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), with related claims under §§ 1986 and 1988 also failing. No objections were filed, and the district court adopted the recommendation, granting the motion to dismiss.
civil rightsfamily lawprocedure
Goodson v. Maggi
District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania · 2011-06-23 · cited 4×
In Goodson v. Maggi, pro se plaintiff Daniel J. Goodson III sued dozens of defendants, including the La Plata County District Court in Colorado, alleging violations of his First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985, 1986, and 1988 arising from state custody proceedings in Pennsylvania and Colorado that resulted in the involuntary termination of his parental rights to three children. The plaintiff sought declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief, including orders nullifying the Colorado court's judgments, changing the children's names, and remanding jurisdiction to Pennsylvania courts. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania granted the Colorado court's motion to dismiss under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). The court reasoned that the Eleventh Amendment barred the claims because the state court was an arm of the state entitled to sovereign immunity, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine deprived federal courts of subject-matter jurisdiction over challenges to final state-court judgments, and the Ex Parte Young exception did not apply absent an ongoing violation of federal law.
family lawcivil rightsfederal power
Goodson v. Maggi
District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania · 2011-06-23 · cited 4×
This case involves a pro se plaintiff suing numerous defendants, including Colorado Judge Douglas S. Walker, under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and related statutes for alleged violations of his constitutional rights stemming from state court custody proceedings that resulted in the termination of his parental rights. The plaintiff sought declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief, including orders to reverse the Colorado judgments and return the children. The court adopted the magistrate judge's report and granted Judge Walker's motion to dismiss. The core reasoning was that Judge Walker was entitled to judicial immunity for actions taken in his judicial capacity, the federal court in Pennsylvania lacked personal jurisdiction over him, and claims for injunctive relief against judicial officers were statutorily barred.
civil rightsfamily lawprocedure
Thornton v. City of Pittsburgh
District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania · 2011-04-06 · cited 3×
This case involved a civil rights lawsuit brought by the administrators of Curtis Mitchell's estate against the City of Pittsburgh and other defendants, alleging that emergency responders violated Mitchell's Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process rights by failing to provide ambulance transport to a hospital during a severe snowstorm, which allegedly contributed to his death from abdominal pain. The plaintiffs also asserted related Pennsylvania state law claims. The court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss the federal section 1983 claim with prejudice, finding that the complaint did not plead facts sufficient to state a plausible substantive due process violation. The court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims and remanded them to state court.
civil rights
Nykiel v. Borough of Sharpsburg
District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania · 2011-03-09 · cited 14×
This civil rights case arose from the 2006 arrest of Gregory Nykiel following a burglary investigation and vehicle pursuit, during which officers used force to extract him from his car and later transported him to the station where he died; the plaintiff alleged excessive force, failure to provide medical care, municipal failure to train, and related state-law claims for battery, wrongful death, and survival under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments via 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The court denied the defendants' motion for partial summary judgment on the excessive-force claims and punitive-damage requests against the individual officers (Duffy, Mitchell, and Rudzki), finding genuine issues of material fact, but granted summary judgment to the municipalities on all federal and state claims and to the officers on the failure-to-train, medical-care, and certain state-law counts. The core reasoning rested on the absence of evidence supporting municipal liability or qualified immunity bars for the officers' personal conduct, while state claims against the boroughs were barred as a matter of law and those against the officers were dismissed without prejudice pending further proceedings.
civil rightsproceduretorts & liability