Recent News

December 11, 2019

Recent Verdict in Taha v. Bucks County Was Pennsylvania’s Third Largest Award or Settlement in 2019

In its recent supplement, The Legal Intelligencer reports that Kohn, Swift & Graf, Abramson and Denneberg, and Zarwin, Baum, DeVito, Kaplan, Schaer, Toddy’s $67 million verdict in Taha v. Bucks County, et al., C.A. No. 12-6867 (E.D. Pa.) was Pennsylvania’s third largest award or settlement in 2019. The Taha v. Bucks County verdict was also the only class action featured.

The case is a class action brought in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Bucks County, Pennsylvania and the Bucks County Correctional Facility for their violations of the Pennsylvania Criminal History Record Information Act (18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 9102 et seq.) by disseminating criminal history information through an online Inmate Lookup Tool. The District Court found that the defendants had violated the Act and the case went to trial on the issue of punitive damages.

After a 5 day trial the jury found that the defendants had committed willful violations of the statute and awarded each class member $1000 in punitive damages.

Please see the supplement here.

Attorneys with Kohn, Swift who worked on the case include Joseph Kohn, Jonathan Shub, Robert LaRocca, Zahra Dean, and Aarthi Manohar.