R. Stanton Wettick Jr.

Ralph Stanton Wettick Jr. Was a retired United States judge who served on the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania's Fifth Judicial District, from 1976 to 2016. He was a leading authority on discovery under Pennsylvania's Rules of Civil Procedure, and was known for handling important and complex cases. He died on December 21, 2024.

Judicial service

In 1976, Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp appointed Wettick to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1977, Wettick was elected to the Court of Common Pleas for a ten-year term, and was successful in retention elections for additional ten-year terms in 1987 and 1997. In 2007, he took senior status at age 69. He retired from the court in 2016 because he reached the mandatory retirement age; not because he wanted to.

Wettick served the court in many capacities, and became especially well known in Allegheny County, and across Pennsylvania's courts, for his rulings on discovery matters.

He began his judicial career in the Family Division, eventually becoming its administrative judge; and in 1990, he was assigned to the court's Civil Division, becoming its administrative judge in 2003. He handled thorny and complex cases in the Civil Division, and in 2007, he helped create a specialized business court and complex litigation track, the Commerce and Complex Litigation Center, and was assigned as one of its original judges.

In 2003, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court created and adopted new rules of civil procedure to make judicial process more uniform across Pennsylvania, so the state's lawyers could more easily understand each county's local practices. In creating these new rules, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Judicial Council's Committee on Statewide Rules collaborated with the Supreme Court's Civil Procedural Rules Committee chaired by Wettick.

In 2011, Wettick was specially assigned to preside over a case in Philadelphia's First Judicial District, where that judicial district itself along with the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania's Supreme Court were the plaintiffs in the lawsuit; and where he had to address issues such as whether a former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice could be subject to a deposition in that case.

As an example of Pennsylvania courts respect for Wettick, although appellate courts are not bound by decisions of trial level courts, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court cited a decision by Wettick to support its opinion in ''Shafer Electric and Construction vs. Mantia''. Other cases show the significant issues he addressed over the years that reached Pennsylvania's highest court. In one case, a majority of Pennsylvania's Supreme Court followed Wettick's decision concerning dismissing cases that a plaintiff failed to actively pursue over a period of years. In another case, involving a dispute over the constitutionality of Pennsylvania's property tax laws, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court agreed with some, though not all, of Wettick's reasoning in addressing the constitutionality of Pennsylvania's real estate assessment laws.

Wettick and Pennsylvania discovery practice

Wettick may have been most well known for his legal opinions concerning discovery under Pennsylvania's Rules of Civil Procedure, and their impact on other judges and attorneys. Both in Pennsylvania and nationally, for example, his legal opinion in ''Acri v. Golden Triangle Management Acceptance Company'' was referenced as a key opinion providing detailed reasons opposing harsh restrictions on attorneys defending depositions that were being imposed by other judges, inside and outside of Pennsylvania, and in federal as well as state courts. His opinions on a wide range of discovery issues were considered important enough as guidance that they have been collected and published as standalone volumes, with opinions from the 1978-1983 period alone being over 400 pages.

In legal cases involving discovery of materials that would usually be protected from disclosure to an opponent because of a privilege, but where those materials had been inadvertently disclosed to the opponent, Wettick's 1995 opinion in ''Minatronics Corp. v. Buchanan Ingersoll'' has been influential in Pennsylvania, including in the Supreme Court. In 2012, well after becoming a senior judge, he issued a detailed legal opinion on the scope of discovery permitted of private Facebook content. In 2016, he refined his own earlier influential opinion on discovery in medical malpractice cases.

In 2012, Wettick led the committee that drafted Pennsylvania's rules on electronic discovery, which had significant differences from the federal rules on the same subject.

Legal career

Wettick was admitted to the Bar of Pennsylvania in 1964. After law school, he was in the private practice of law in Pittsburgh, and became a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh Law School three years later. He was given partial leave from the law school during the 1969-1970 year to serve as Executive Director of the non-profit organization Neighborhood Legal Services Association, which provided legal services to those who could not afford lawyers. He served in that role until being appointed to the Court of Common Pleas. The most noteworthy case during his tenure was the years-long litigation over creation of the General Braddock School District and the issue of institutionalizing segregation in public schools.

Education

Wettick received a B.A. degree in economics from Amherst College in 1960, and his law degree from Yale University in 1963.

Personal life

Wettick was born in 1938 in New Castle, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, and later moved to Sharon, Mercer County.

Death

He died on December 21, 2024.

Honors and appointments

Wettick has been appointed to the following positions or received the following awards and honors, among others;

* He received the Everyday Leader Award from the Pennsylvania Bar Association (2006)
* Although sitting in Pittsburgh, Wettick received a lifetime achievement award from the Legal Intelligencer, a daily law journal located in Philadelphia, 300 miles away at the other end of Pennsylvania (2015)
* He received the highest rating for diligence and ranked best for impartiality, legal ability and temperament in a trial lawyers survey by the Allegheny County Bar Association (1997)
* Wettick was a member of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania's Civil Procedural Rules Committee, including his designation by the Supreme Court as committee vice-chair and chair (1992-2016)
* Wettick served as chair of the following: the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's Domestic Relations Committee, the Pennsylvania Juvenile Court Judges Commission, the Ad Hoc Medical Malpractice Committee to Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy, and the Three-Judge Coordinating Court for Silicone Implant Litigation
* In October 2024, courtroom 815 of the Allegheny County Courthouse was dedicated in Wettick’s honor

Author and academic

Wettick authored an authoritative legal treatise on Pennsylvania civil procedure. He served as an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law for decades.

As a young lawyer, in 1964, Wettick wrote ''Modifying Unemployment Compensation Acts to Remove Obstacles to Work Sharing''. Also while a lawyer, Wettick co-authored, ''The Effectiveness of State and Local Regulation of Handguns: A Statistical Analysis,'' and '' Miranda in Pittsburgh—A Statistical Study''.

References

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People from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Judges of the Pennsylvania Courts of Common Pleas
Amherst College alumni
Yale Law School alumni
20th-century Pennsylvania state court judges
21st-century American judges