The PA Chamber filed two amicus briefs last week in cases with broad impact on the business community.  In Dravo LLC-Derivative Claims, the PA Chamber joined a brief urging the PA Supreme Court to overrule a Superior Court decision that improperly created a cause of action for corporate veil piercing and allowed for an untimely claim against a dissolved limited liability company (LLC) in direct contradiction to the two-year window to bring claims against a legally dissolved LLC under the state’s LLC Act.  The brief argues that the Superior Court decision will significantly erode limited liability protections in PA for companies that followed the law.

In Amagasu v. Fred Beans Family of Dealerships, the PA Chamber joined a brief urging the Pennsylvania Superior Court to overturn an astronomically excessive punitive-damages award out of Philadelphia of $800 million.  The brief argues that punitive damages, in addition to compensatory damages of $177 million, should have never been awarded because there was no evidence of intentionally malicious conduct.  The brief also argues that the punitive damages award was the result of faulty jury instructions and that they far exceed the constitutional limits established in U.S. Supreme Court precedent.