Articles, Alerts & Perspectives

Pittsburgh, PA

TRIBLive

(by Justin Vellucci)

For Tim Novosel, Brazilian jiu jitsu is more about control than contact.

The Pittsburgh police commander — who launched a jiu jitsu training program for city cops about two years ago — talked about the importance the martial art places on focus instead of force. Nearby, a dozen officers grappled nearby on an ocean of blue mats in Pittsburgh police’s North Side training academy.

The officers’ limbs — each cloaked in a navy-blue gi, a robe-style top that’s part of jiu-jitsu’s uniform — furled around each other trying to gain an upper hand. Trainers in black gi leaned in periodically to help officers with dominant positions or demonstrate how to master moves like the Triangle Choke.

“It’s like human chess, it’s such a thinking man’s sport,” said Novosel, 51, a North Side native who took over leadership in February of Pittsburgh’s Zone 2 station, which covers Downtown. “You’re always examining the body and seeing how you can fit.”

“I’m passionate about it because it you came and told me, ‘Patrol over there,’ I’d rather go out without my gun than without my jiu jitsu,” he added. “It’s another tool on your belt.”

A couple of generations ago — long before Novosel joined the Pittsburgh force in 2007 — cops trained by boxing, the commander told TribLive.

Today, he said, Pittsburgh police integrate Brazilian jiu jitsu into teaching recruits the bureau’s defensive tactics — and keeping more tenured officers fit and focused.

About 120 officers — three of them women — have taken part in the bureau’s voluntary jiu jitsu training, with 50 coming to sessions regularly. …

Harrisburg, PA

The Legal Intelligencer

(by Casey Alan Coyle and Michael Libuser)

Online gaming is a booming industry.  In fiscal year 2022–23, the Pennsylvania Lottery’s iLottery program generated $872.5 million in eInstant sales, while online gambling revenues topped $2 billion in Pennsylvania last year according to published reports.  But behind the scenes, a dispute has arisen that pits the Pennsylvania Lottery against privately owned casinos.  The fight is over legislation that prohibits the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue (the “Department”), the administrator of the Lottery, from offering products that “simulate casino-style lottery games” as part of the iLottery program.  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently construed the meaning of that phrase in Greenwood Gaming & Entertainment, Inc. v. Department of Revenue, 306 A.3d 319 (Pa. 2023), and remanded the case to the Commonwealth Court with instructions to apply a corresponding standard.  The question now is whether, and to what extent, the Commonwealth Court will be able to establish a boundary between iLottery games and the online products offered by casinos.

Act 42

On March 15, 1972, the Pennsylvania Lottery sold its first ticket for a weekly drawing.  The Lottery, then only a year into its existence, operated without competition and continued to do so for decades.  Over the years, with the rising popularity of Lottery games, including now-ubiquitous “scratch-offs,” came a tide of competition and technology that shepherded in a new legislative era for Pennsylvania gambling rules.  First came the Race Horse Development and Gaming Act (the “Gaming Act”), which authorized slot machines.  Six years later, the Legislature expanded the Gaming Act to include table games.  Then, in 2014, the General Assembly amended the State Lottery Law (the “Lottery Law”) to prohibit the Department from offering “[i]nternet instant game[s]” and “simulated casino-style lottery game[s]” through the Lottery, absent further legislative authorization. …

Pittsburgh, PA and Washington, DC

PIOGA Press

(By Kevin Garber and Jessica Deyoe)

On March 13, 2024, Governor Shapiro’s office announced the Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction Initiative (PACER) and the Pennsylvania Reliable Energy Sustainability Standard (PRESS) legislative proposals. Together, these two initiatives seek to lower greenhouse gas emissions and promote the use of alternative energy for the electric energy grid in Pennsylvania. We note that first, as of the date of this article, the language of the bills has not been made publicly available and second, these initiatives are not mutually exclusive, so it is possible the legislature may pass only one of them.

Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction Initiative (PACER)

PACER is a Pennsylvania-specific-cap-and-invest program that, if passed, would set a declining cap on carbon emissions from Pennsylvania’s fossil fuel-fired power plants and require them to purchase credits from the Commonwealth to offset emissions. It would also remove Pennsylvania from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). PACER Credits would be tradeable emission credits, similar to RGGI credits; however, non-profit entities will not be allowed to purchase PACER credits to remove them from the market. This program would direct DEP to conduct a Pennsylvania-run auction similar to the RGGI program. DEP could be allowed to delegate the implementation of the auction to an agent but retain enforcement authority. If passed, DEP will be required to review the Pennsylvania Base Budget established under the currently enjoined RGGI regulation within 120 days to determine whether a new Base Budge should be established. The new regulation, if needed, would be promulgated by the streamlined Final Omit regulatory process.

Revenue from the sale of CO2 allowances under the PACER Program would fund the following recipients and programs: (1) consumers as an on-bill rebate by the Public Utility Commission; …

Pittsburgh, PA

The Legal Intelligencer

(by Harley Stone, Anna Jewart and Alex Farone)

In August of 2023, we discussed the ongoing trend of recent cases to blur the line between public officials’ “public” and “private” digital communications and social media, focusing primarily on two 2023 Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court cases – Penncrest School District v. Cagle and Wyoming Borough v. Boyer.  In these cases the courts were called upon to decide when a public official’s own social media posts are “public” and therefore subject to disclosure under the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law (RTKL).  While release of messages or comments intended to be kept private can be embarrassing, on March 15, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on an issue that more directly impacts the legal interests of public officials: when does a public official’s social media activity on a personal account constitute state action under 42 U.S.C. §1983, subjecting the public official to liability?

Section 1983 provides a cause of action against “[e]very person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State” deprives someone of a civil right granted under the U.S. constitutional or federal statute.  It protects against acts attributable to a State (interpreted to include local government agencies), not those of a private person.  When a person associated with a State or local government agency acts in a manner that allegedly deprives someone of a federal constitutional or statutory right, the question therefore arises as to whether that act rose to the level of “state action” that triggers potential §1983 liability or was merely the private conduct of that individual.  The line between private conduct and state action can be hard to draw, and the age of social media has only made such distinctions more difficult.  …

Pittsburgh, PA

Pittsburgh Business Times

(By James Chen)

The transportation industry is in “the midst of a revolution,” changing the paradigm of how we transport people and goods on the nation’s public roads, said James Chen. Chen, who heads the Transportation Technology and Energy practice at Babst Calland, speaks about trends and developments in new transportation and energy technologies.

“For the first time in 100 years, we’re shifting that technology completely to a whole new powertrain structure that uses stored energy in the form of electricity and motors to power vehicles,” Chen said.

Evolving from the dominant technology of internal combustion engines – gas and diesel-powered vehicles – the industry has seen incremental improvement, moving from leaded to unleaded gas, the use of catalytic converters and on-board diagnostic systems.

Now, the concept of a robust battery pack of stored energy that moves electric vehicles through harsh changes in weather, vibration and more is serving as a platform for new methods for stable, stationary environments outside the transportation realm, as in connectivity, data and data sharing.

The electric vehicle is also providing a platform in the area of autonomy – vehicles that almost drive themselves, recognizing lines on the road, pedestrians, other vehicles and roads signs.

“What you’re basically talking about is machine learning,” he said. “And machine learning, at the end of the day, is artificial intelligence.”

These new technologies are also relevant, Chen adds, because battery stored energy can help with demand across energy sectors as the focus moves from primarily fossil fuel burning to additional types of energy generation like wind, solar, hydro-power and nuclear. All are necessary to satisfy increasing demands for energy in the United States and abroad. …

Washington, DC

Washington Business Journal

(By James Chen)

The transportation industry is in “the midst of a revolution,” changing the paradigm of how we transport people and goods on the nation’s public roads, said James Chen. Chen, who heads the Transportation Technology and Energy practice at Babst Calland, speaks about trends and developments in new transportation and energy technologies.

“For the first time in 100 years, we’re shifting that technology completely to a whole new powertrain structure that uses stored energy in the form of electricity and motors to power vehicles,” Chen said.

Evolving from the dominant technology of internal combustion engines – gas and diesel-powered vehicles – the industry has seen incremental improvement, moving from leaded to unleaded gas, the use of catalytic converters and on-board diagnostic systems.

Now, the concept of a robust battery pack of stored energy that moves electric vehicles through harsh changes in weather, vibration and more is serving as a platform for new methods for stable, stationary environments outside the transportation realm, as in connectivity, data and data sharing.

The electric vehicle is also providing a platform in the area of autonomy – vehicles that almost drive themselves, recognizing lines on the road, pedestrians, other vehicles and roads signs.

“What you’re basically talking about is machine learning,” he said. “And machine learning, at the end of the day, is artificial intelligence.”

These new technologies are also relevant, Chen adds, because battery stored energy can help with demand across energy sectors as the focus moves from primarily fossil fuel burning to additional types of energy generation like wind, solar, hydro-power and nuclear. All are necessary to satisfy increasing demands for energy in the United States and abroad. …

Pittsburgh, PA and Harrisburg, PA

Litigation Legal Perspective

(by Joseph Schaeffer and Michael Libuser)

Major League Baseball’s Opening Day is symbolic: for a short while, every one of the 30 teams has a chance at the World Series and every one of the 26 players on those teams’ active rosters has a chance at emerging as a superstar. Over 162 games and thousands of at-bats, however, the winning teams and superstars separate themselves from the rest of the pack. Most of those games and at-bats will be remembered only by the participants, but a special few will live on in memory.

Litigation is not much different. Of the thousands of decisions issued each year by Pennsylvania’s appellate courts, most are relevant only to the parties to the dispute. A handful, though, have far broader consequences—whether by announcing a new legal principle or applying an existing legal principle in a novel manner. In this Legal Perspective, we highlight several recent decisions and a few that appear on the horizon.

Balls or Strikes? Reviewing the Pennsylvania Appellate Courts’ Recent Decisions

Sullivan v. Werner Co., 306 A.3d 846 (Pa. 2023)

Sullivan left undisturbed the longstanding prohibition on the admission of industry or government standards evidence in strict products liability cases. The defendant, a scaffold manufacturer, attempted to avoid liability in a design defect claim, in part by showing its compliance with OSHA and other standards. In a split decision, three of the six Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justices who presided over the appeal rejected that defense. Sullivan was unexpected. The Court adopted the prohibition on compliance evidence in the 1980s, in Lewis v. …

Charleston, WV

The Wildcatter

(By Nikolas Tysiak)

A dose of new case law has arisen in Appalachia this winter. Enjoy!

West Virginia

For those paying attention, there has been some litigation regarding the West Virginia statutory pooling laws passed in 2022. In Sonda v. West Virginia Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, two landowners sued the West Virginia Conservation Commission, challenging the new pooling laws (W. Va. Code §22C-9-1, et seq.) in federal court, alleging an unlawful taking without due process of law under the U. S. Constitution. Instead of proceeding on the merits, the U.S. district court for the Northern District of West Virginia unilaterally decided to abstain from hearing the case, stating that the parties needed to litigate in West Virginia state court first, without identifying the issues that needed to be resolved in state court. The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the U.S. District Court had “abused its discretion” in abstaining from the action, as there were clear questions of federal law presented for adjudication and no clear statement of state law issues to be decided. In order to abstain as attempted by the District Court, there must be an unclear issue of state law which may render the need to go to federal court moot. The Court of Appeals therefore reversed the District Court Order of Abstention and remanded to that court for further proceedings.

Ohio

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, confronted a question of whether the Point Pleasant formation constituted part of the Utica Shale, or a deeper formation. In Honey Crest Acres LLC v. Rice Drilling D LLC (2024 WL 1155970 (March 18, 2024 S. …

Pittsburgh, PA

Pennsylvania Business Central

(By Mary Binker and Susanna Bagdasarova)

On October 30, 2023, President Biden issued Executive Order 14110 on “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence,”[1] taking a significant step toward shaping the future of AI[2] and its regulation. The Order, which reflects growing calls for federal guidance on AI from public and private stakeholders, focuses on establishing a framework for safe, secure, and trustworthy AI development, focusing on ethical innovation, national security, and global cooperation. The Order builds on the White House’s October 2022 “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights”[3] and the National Institute of Standards & Technology’s (NIST) January 2023 “Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework.”[4]

The Order is broad in scope, covering a spectrum of industries and issues, including the establishment of new standards for AI safety and security; protection of privacy; advancement of equity and civil rights; support of consumers, patients, and employees; and promotion of innovation and competition.

Although the Order is primarily applicable to federal agencies, it reflects a vision and roadmap for AI regulation intended to guide both industry standards and future federal legislation.

The Order sets out eight principles and priorities to guide policymaking on AI systems:

• AI must be safe and secure, requiring robust, reliable, repeatable, and standardized evaluations of AI systems, as well as mechanisms to test, understand, and mitigate risks.
• The U.S. should promote responsible innovation, competition, and collaboration through investments in AI-related education, training, development, research, and capacity as well as by opposing monopolies and unlawful collusion with respect to key assets.

…