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Law360 (April 15, 2020, 7:53 PM EDT) -- Allegheny County has asked a Pittsburgh federal court to continue the pause on more than a dozen cases against it so officials in Pennsylvania's second-largest county could concentrate their efforts on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The county sought to stay 16 federal cases where it or one of its departments was named as a defendant. Most of the cases involved the Allegheny County Jail, the Department of Emergency Services or the Department of Human Services, which were all in some way trying to respond to the coronavirus along with the county Law Department that was representing them, the petition said.
The county asked for a 30-day extension of a pause that was originally granted March 17 and was set to expire Friday.
"In each of these cases, if the stay were lifted, the involved department would be required within the next 30 days to devote significant time, resources, and attention to defend the lawsuit," the motion said. "Respectfully, this is time, resources, and attention that must be devoted now to combating the impact of COVID-19 in Allegheny County."
The county argued that each of the departments was devoting significant time to dealing with the pandemic and could not simultaneously handle their COVID-19 response, their regular duties, and defending against the lawsuits. As of Wednesday, the county reported 904 cases of COVID-19 and 26 deaths.
"All three departments are required to operate 24/7 and continue to have to perform all of their other mandatory obligations while adding to their work the complexities presented by COVID-19," the motion said.
The jail, which was named in 12 of the 16 cases on the list seeking a pause, had its first confirmed case of COVID-19 among its inmates on April 8 and was now undertaking "extreme efforts are underway to address the emergency situation, quarantine inmates where appropriate, follow evolving guidelines, and provide unique medical services and care to inmates," the motion said.
A lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment and injunction ordering the jail to stop housing inmates two to a cell and to otherwise comply with CDC guidelines on social distancing to prevent the virus' spread was not among those requested to be paused.
All of the suits the county wants to stay were part of the original order, except for one that had been transferred to the federal court April 9. That suit claimed that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center hospitals and the Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families had improperly used new mothers' unconfirmed drug tests or answers to questionnaires about drug use to start investigations of their families.
The OCYF, the county said, was busy trying to respond to abuse allegations, conduct investigations and home visits, place children in foster homes and monitor existing placements.
"All of which is on-going with new evolving protocols to minimize contact, conduct hearings remotely, and still address concerns over increases in abuse situations, and other risk factors that may be caused by necessary stay-at-home rules, the closing of schools, social distancing, and other impacts of COVID-19 on families in Allegheny County," the motion said.
The OES, meanwhile, was handling all the county's usual emergency calls and dispatching, with additional protocols for identifying and flagging COVID-19 cases.
The law department, which defends the county, was advising everyone on handling the crisis while doing its own planning for rescheduling the primary elections and an expected increase in mail-in ballots, the county said.
"The Allegheny County Law Department is also called upon to divert its resources to providing unique legal advice to various county departments presented by employee-related issues of COVID-19 and needs to be available to perform new work necessitated by the COVID19 emergency," the motion said. "The Allegheny County solicitor needs law department attorneys to be able to devote their time and attention to the new duties they are called upon to perform."
According to the motion, the county reached out to the plaintiffs' attorneys on each case and either got their consent to the delay or hadn't heard back. In the only case on the list not pertaining to the jail, OCYF or emergency services, a mural artist named the county manager's office and Department of Public Works among the parties that had allegedly destroyed his commissioned works around Pittsburgh, the artist's attorneys had consented to granting the extension, the county said.
Counsel for some of the cases potentially being delayed and a representative of the county did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Allegheny County is represented by Andrew F. Szefi and Virginia Spencer Scott of the county law department.
The case is In re: Administrative Order Concerning Jury Trials and Certain Other Proceedings Relative to COVID-19 Matters, case number 2:20-mc-00394, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
--Editing by Adam LoBelia.
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