Commerce and Complex Litigation Center

By: James R. Mall, Esquire jrm@muslaw.com

Starting in January, 2008, complex construction cases filed in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County may, upon motion of one of the parties, be assigned to one of two judges who will hear cases in the newly constituted Commerce and Complex Litigation Center. In addition to construction cases, this division of the Court will decide cases involving intellectual property, securities violations, electronic commerce, and restrictive covenants along with various types of litigation involving business entities involved in commercial transactions.

The benefits anticipated from this new Center will be that participants in construction projects, including owners, contractors and subcontractors, will have their disputes resolved more expeditiously and preliminary pretrial rulings will be made more consistently and uniformly by an experienced jurist familiar with the types of issues and claims which ordinarily comprise construction disputes. The current system of case assignment in the Civil Division calls for the random assignment of cases to judges without regard for their experience and expertise in complex construction cases.