McCaffery's calls raise concerns

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Seamus P. McCaffery raised objections about a judge hearing a civil case brought by a firm that paid his wife a referral fee and whose principals have contributed to his campaign, according to sources in the justice system.

McCaffery's involvement last year in a case heard by Common Pleas Court Judge Allan L. Tereshko resulted in several tense exchanges and eventually reached Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille, who made it clear to other officials that the judge would not be reassigned, the sources said.

In a second case in 2012, the sources said, McCaffery also complained about Tereshko in a call to the chief administrative judge in the Philadelphia court system.

The first case was brought by Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky, a personal-injury firm that paid McCaffery's wife and chief aide, Lise Rapaport, a referral fee in 2007 as part of a settlement. Tereshko has long been viewed by the plaintiff bar in Philadelphia as insufficiently sympathetic to people who bring personal-injury suits.

The FBI is investigating 19 referral fees paid to McCaffery's wife over the last 10 years, a period that also covers the justice's tenure as a state Superior Court judge, The Inquirer reported this week. In the only case for which the amount of the fee is known, Rapaport was paid $821,000 in 2012 out of a settlement in a case brought by a different Philadelphia firm.

Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., an expert on legal ethics and professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the University of California's Hastings College of the Law, said McCaffery's actions sounded "entirely inappropriate and improper."

"It's not within the understood role of a judge of an appellate court to make inquiries about how a trial court is being conducted," Hazard said. "The justice, in my opinion, is conducting himself entirely outside well-understood lines for appropriate conduct."

Legal ethics expert Lawrence J. Fox, an attorney with the Philadelphia firm Drinker, Biddle & Reath, noted, "Appellate justices are not permitted to get involved in matters that might come before them."

McCaffery did not respond to messages left with his staff or an e-mail sent seeking comment. The justice's complaints about Tereshko were first reported Wednesday by the Legal Intelligencer.

McCaffery's lawyer, Dion G. Rassias, did not respond to messages left with his assistant at the Beasley law firm in Philadelphia.

In letters to The Inquirer in March and April, Rassias vigorously defended McCaffery and Rapaport, saying Rapaport earned legitimate referral fees connecting firms with clients from people who were among her "wealth of friends" or clients whom she had represented before she became her husband's judicial aide in 1997.

Robert J. Mongeluzzi said in an e-mail he had no knowledge of any involvement by McCaffery in cases brought by his firm. He said adamantly that he had not contacted the justice regarding the cases.

"Your voice mail asked whether I had comment as to whether Justice McCaffery involved himself to complain about the judge in our firm's cases. I have no knowledge regarding that issue," he wrote.

According to sources in the judicial system, in early 2012, McCaffery expressed an interest in a lawsuit filed by Saltz Mongeluzzi on behalf of a couple whose infant son was found dead in a crib with his head wedged between wooden slats. The suit was filed against Toys R Us, the crib manufacturer, the day-care center, and others.

McCaffery, sources in the justice system said, complained that Tereshko had been given the case after Common Pleas Court Judge Howland Abramson, to whom it was originally assigned, resigned from the bench.

McCaffery contacted Russell Nigro, a fellow Democrat and former Supreme Court justice, according to the sources. Court records in the suit show Nigro was acting as a mediator in the case. Nigro then contacted John W. Herron, the administrative judge of Common Pleas Court and Tereshko's supervisor, the sources said.

According to the sources, Nigro told Herron that he had spoken with McCaffery and that the justice was troubled by Tereshko's involvement in the case.

Herron, the sources said, then spoke with Tereshko. Herron did not urge Tereshko to change how he was handling the case or ask him to turn it over to another judge, the sources said, but did tell Tereshko about the call from Nigro relaying McCaffery's concern.

Herron also inquired why Tereshko was handling so many cases. Tereshko, named supervising judge of civil cases in November 2011, said his caseload had grown with his colleague's retirement.

Tereshko was furious over the call from Nigro and McCaffery's supposed interest in the case, the sources in the justice system said. He told Herron he would not quit the case, the sources said.

Nigro, Herron, and Tereshko declined to comment.

According to the sources, one major reason McCaffery was upset was that he believed Herron had assured him Tereshko would mainly serve in an administrative role and would not preside over many cases.

At the time, McCaffery, a former administrative judge of Municipal Court, had no official role with city courts. The high court's official liaison to the Philadelphia courts was Castille, a Republican and the other Philadelphian on the Supreme Court.

Some time later, Castille heard about the matter and spoke with Herron, the sources said. Castille was critical of McCaffery and told Herron there should be no change in Tereshko's assignments, sources said.

In an interview, Castille did not name McCaffery but described the episode this way: "Information was given to me about an attempt to remove a case from Tereshko, and I said it's not going to happen." He would not elaborate.

Later in 2012, Nigro helped mediate a settlement in the case. The parents received about $4 million. The Saltz Mongeluzzi firm and another Philadelphia law firm, Aversa & Linn, each was paid $580,000 in fees, according to public records.

In 2007, the year McCaffery successfully ran for the high court, Mongeluzzi and Michael F. Barrett, two of the founders of the firm, contributed a total of $12,500 to his campaign.

The Committee for a Better Tomorrow, the political action arm for trial lawyers and plaintiff attorneys, contributed $367,000 to McCaffery in 2007. Barrett is current chairman of the committee.

Later in 2012, according to sources in the justice system, McCaffery called Herron directly to complain about Tereshko.

"He did it again," McCaffery told Herron, according to sources.

McCaffery ended the conversation without clarifying what he was referring to, the sources said. Herron and Tereshko concluded the justice was likely referring to a recent case in which Tereshko had ruled against Saltz Mongeluzzi.

The suit in question was filed on behalf of a worker who fell from a scaffold while power-cleaning a building in Wilkes-Barre. It had been filed in Philadelphia even though none of the defendants was based in the city. The defense asked that it be transferred to Luzerne County. Saltz Mongeluzzi argued that filing in Philadelphia was justified because the defendants did business in the city.

Philadelphia juries have a reputation for being generous to workers in such civil suits. Working-class juries, the thinking goes, are less inclined to side with business owners.

In this case, Tereshko agreed with the defense, and in September ordered the case transferred to Luzerne County, where the accident took place. The case is pending.

A month later, Tereshko ran into a career-changing crisis of his own.

A state Superior Court panel cited him in October for failing to disclose that his wife, a lawyer, worked for a law firm representing a defendant in a case before him.

Tereshko also failed to list his wife's job on his annual disclosure forms. He remedied the disclosure this year by filing amended reports.

In the case that prompted the criticism, Tereshko ruled that a man hit by a car in 2008 while unclogging a pipe at a Philadelphia Wawa store was not covered by his employer's insurance policy.

The Superior Court panel reversed Tereshko on other grounds, but in a footnote noted its "disapproval" that the judge failed to disclose his wife's job to the litigants.

In his written opinion on the appeal, Tereshko noted that his wife was not involved in the case. He also said she was a salaried member of the firm, not a partner, so her income did not rise or fall with its overall fortunes.

He resigned as supervising judge but sought to continue hearing civil cases. The state Supreme Court, however, imposed a stiffer punishment. It removed Tereshko from the civil bench and transferred him back to Family Court in January 2013 to hear cases involving juveniles, his assignment 20 years ago when he became a judge.

McCaffery, according to the sources, was one of those who advocated strongly for removing Tereshko from the civil bench