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Law360 (March 25, 2020, 4:41 PM EDT) -- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it is canceling its scheduled April argument session in Pittsburgh, as part of the state judiciary's ongoing efforts to curb the rate of new coronavirus infections.
The high court had been scheduled to hear some 18 cases over the course of the three-day session set to begin on April 21, but the justices said in a one-page order that they would instead decide each of the appeals on the briefs.
The court said the move was being made "in light of the necessity for a statewide judicial emergency ... and the governor's proclamations imposing increasingly restrictive remedial efforts."
The justices declared a statewide judicial emergency last week on the advice of Gov. Tom Wolf and state health officials to help reduce person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus at courthouses across Pennsylvania. The emergency order issued by the justices on March 18 closed both county-level trial courts and the three statewide appellate courts to the public, with certain exceptions for essential functions, through at least April 3.
The session that had been scheduled for next month is Pittsburgh is one of six the justices typically hold throughout the year, and would have followed a two-day session the high court held in Philadelphia the week of March 9.
Since the court's March session ended, Justice David Wecht announced that he was self-quarantining along with his family after one of his children tested positive for COVID-19. A spokesperson said at the time that the child had returned to the U.S. from studying overseas after the Supreme Court's March argument session ended.
Among the cases the justices had been scheduled to hear next month was a dispute over whether attorney-client privilege protected K&L Gates LLP from disclosing legal fees charged for work on the late conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife's estate plan, and another over the standards for proving claims under the "catch-all" provision of Pennsylvania's Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law.
While the court said that, as a general matter, it intended to decide cases on April's argument list on the briefs, the justices said they would allow individual parties to file motions asking that oral arguments in their cases be moved to another session.
The court's next argument session is scheduled for the week of May 18 in Harrisburg.
--Editing by Alanna Weissman.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
