Medicare’s Settlement-Reporting Penalties Are Now Being Enforced: What It Means for Your Injury Settlement
If you’re on Medicare and you settle an injury claim, there’s a federal reporting machine running behind your settlement that you’ve probably never heard of — and as of October 2025, it has teeth. Insurers that report your settlement late now face real per-day penalties from Medicare, and while those penalties don’t land on you, […]
When Your Own Insurance Company Lowballs You: Bad Faith After Devincenzo-Gambone
Your own insurance company is supposed to be in your corner. In Devincenzo-Gambone v. Erie Insurance Exchange, it wasn’t — Erie shorted its own insureds $50,000 on an arbitration award it had agreed to, and never told them it was keeping its options open. The Pennsylvania Superior Court’s October 17, 2025 decision affirmed that this […]
Stacking Underinsured Motorist Coverage After Baluch and Kennedy: More Protection for Some, a Trap for Others
“Stacking” is one of those insurance words nobody explains until you’re hurt and the bills arrive. Two recent Pennsylvania Superior Court decisions — Baluch and Kennedy, both against Erie Insurance — went opposite directions on stacking underinsured motorist coverage, and together they teach a lesson every Pennsylvania household should hear before a crash, not after […]
Paul Miller’s Law Fines Are Now in Effect: What It Means After a Pennsylvania Car Crash
If you were hit by a driver who was holding a phone, Pennsylvania law is now squarely on your side in a way it wasn’t before. Paul Miller’s Law made handheld phone use behind the wheel a primary offense in Pennsylvania — and since June 5, 2026, the warnings are over and the fines have […]
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Keeps the $250,000 Cap on Injury Claims Against Government Agencies
A jury says your injuries are worth $7 million. The law says you can collect $250,000. That gap is not a mistake or a technicality — it is Pennsylvania law, and on October 1, 2026, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court confirmed in Freilich v. SEPTA that the gap is constitutional and here to stay unless the […]
Medical Debt Is Back on Credit Reports: What Pennsylvania Patients Need to Know
A couple of years ago, it looked like medical debt was about to disappear from credit reports for good. A federal rule was written, the credit bureaus had already pulled back on their own, and a lot of Pennsylvania patients assumed the problem was solved. It wasn’t. The rule is gone, the court fight over […]
Student Loans in Bankruptcy in 2026: The Federal Discharge Path Is Still Open
Ask most people — including, until recently, most lawyers — whether student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy, and you’ll get a flat “no.” That answer was never quite the whole story, and since late 2022 it has been materially wrong for federal loans. The federal discharge process created then is still open and operating […]
Filing in the Middle District of Pennsylvania? Three Practice Changes for 2026
Most of what determines whether a bankruptcy case runs smoothly never makes the news. It’s the local rules — the forms, the filing procedures, the court orders that govern how cases actually move through the courthouse. If you’re filing in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, which covers Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, and Harrisburg, three changes in the […]
The $2.75 Million Chapter 13 Shortcut Is Gone: Pennsylvania’s Debt Limits Explained
For a few years, Chapter 13 had a simple rule: one combined debt limit of $2.75 million, and if your total debts fit under it, you could file. That shortcut is gone. It expired on June 21, 2024, and I still meet people — and occasionally see filings — that assume it’s still around. It […]
What Can You Keep If You File Bankruptcy in 2026? The Federal Exemption Numbers
The question I hear more than any other is simple: “If I file bankruptcy, do I lose everything?” In the overwhelming majority of cases I handle, the answer is no — people keep their house, their car, their furniture, and their retirement. The reason is exemptions: the dollar amounts of property the law lets you […]
