Mark D. Taticchi

Appellate Litigation

Mark has extensive experience in appellate litigation, including questions of standing, jurisdiction, preemption, arbitrability and class certification. In addition to briefing and arguing direct appeals, Mark regularly assists clients with petitions for discretionary appellate review, including petitions for interlocutory review of a trial-court decision, requests for rehearing of an unfavorable ruling at an intermediate appellate court, and petitions for review in state and federal courts of last resort.

Mark clerked for Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States and the Honorable Sandra S. Ikuta of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Commercial Litigation, Class Action

Mark counsels clients on various consumer-fraud, deceptive trade practices and unfair-competition matters arising under both state and federal law. He also possesses extensive experience with aggregate litigation, including both mass torts and class actions. Mark regularly assists clients in navigating both the procedural requirements of class certification and the unique strategic considerations that accompany aggregate litigation.

Representative Experience

• Successfully represented an energy company in litigation concerning a Minnesota statute giving existing owners of electric transmission facilities a right of first refusal to build new transmission lines that will connect to their existing facilities. After our client was selected to build a new transmission line in Minnesota, a losing bidder brought suit, arguing that the statute violated the Dormant Commerce Clause. The district court ruled in our client's favor, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. The challenger then sought certiorari, but the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with our arguments against further review and denied the petition without comment.
• Represented a nonprofit organization in a successful appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which vacated an intermediate appellate decision that had allowed the Pennsylvania State Police to withhold most of the provisions of its social media monitoring policy under Pennsylvania's Right to Know Law. Following remand to the intermediate appellate court and another unfavorable decision from that court, our team persuaded the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to once again take the case.
• Drafted a successful petition for a panel rehearing of an unpublished opinion construing an international treaty and the implementing federal statute. Our petition persuaded the Third Circuit panel to flip from a unanimous decision against our position to a unanimous, published opinion in our client's favor.
• Prepared the briefs in a direct appeal to the Second Circuit from an adverse summary judgment decision. We persuaded the Court of Appeals that the district court had applied the wrong standard in assessing the evidence at summary judgment and secured a remand for trial on our client's claims.
• Successfully briefed and argued before the Pennsylvania Superior Court for affirmance of a trial court's decision denying the appellants' eve-of-trial demand for arbitration of our clients' breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty claims under Pennsylvania law.