Steven A. Haber

Steven A. Haber serves his clients both as a tenacious litigator and as an experienced business counselor. His practice encompasses many areas of law such as business litigation, construction disputes, telecommunications law, products liability, intellectual property, class actions, securities litigation, commercial code disputes, trusts and estate litigation, regulatory compliance, and property escheatment.

Steve represents a diverse client base including manufacturers of automobiles, printed circuit boards, architectural windows and doors, pharmaceutical products, and computer printers. Additionally, he represents real estate owners and developers, financial services companies, telecommunications companies, professional corporations and utilities.

In all cases, Steve works to understand a problem from the client’s perspective and treat the root cause of that problem, rather than the symptoms. He collaborates with his clients to improve their business processes and enhance their risk management.

In his free time, Steve enjoys spending time with his family, travel, pick-up basketball, the beach, reading, biking and listening to baseball on the radio on a Sunday afternoon.

Steve serves as outside general counsel for clients, both large and small, and assists his clients to view their legal issues in a business context. Steve’s financial training and business background make him uniquely suited to analyze legal obstacles with an eye on the bottom line. For example, Steve has counseled multi-disciplinary task forces investigating potential product safety issues and spearheaded voluntary recall programs in cooperation with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. He has also updated corporate contracts and warranties, and advised on corporate governance issues.

Steve also handles a wide variety of litigation matters including:

• $7.9 million recovery against a major law firm on behalf of a computer security company that invented a fiber optic security system, in an intellectual property legal malpractice case involving the negligent drafting and prosecution of a patent application;
• $2.5 million recovery against a major law firm on behalf of two physician- inventors of a mechanical ventilator for critically ill patients, in an intellectual property legal malpractice case involving negligent drafting and prosecution of a patent application;
• $2.2 million verdict in favor of a purchaser of multiple shopping centers against a seller for fraudulently inducing purchaser to pay more for the portfolio of shopping centers than it would have if defendants had accurately disclosed the financial performance of the assets;
• Multi-million jury verdict on behalf of the owners of a major shopping center in compensation for soil and groundwater contamination caused by leaking underground storage tanks once buried beneath two gas stations. The verdict was one of the first in Pennsylvania under the state’s Storage Tank Spill Prevention Act;
• Dismissal on federal preemption grounds of a putative class action that sought to hold the wireless communications industry liable for state law claims for injuries allegedly arising from radio frequency emissions;
• Dismissal for his client, a major automobile manufacturer, of four putative class action complaints brought against the automobile industry alleging violations of the New Jersey Antitrust Act and the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. The complaint alleged that automobile manufacturers conspired to prohibit the export of automobiles originally sold in Canada to the United States. Plaintiffs alleged that vehicles sold in Canada were on average 10-30% less expensive than the same vehicles sold in the United States;
• Dismissal of personal injury and wrongful death actions filed by injured workers and decedents arising out of casino hotel garage collapse. He successfully defeated plaintiffs’ attempts to have their claims heard in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, as that court lacked personal jurisdiction over the casino hotel’s owner;
• Favorable property damage settlement on behalf of the owner of three commercial properties in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania that were damaged as a result of catastrophic flooding. Prior to the litigation, FEMA had denied any payment to the insured for the property damage;
• Summary judgment for liability on behalf of a property owner who accelerated $13 million in rent against a commercial tenant where the tenant abandoned the premises with 10 years left on the lease after the property suffered flood damage;
• Defense decision in favor of his clients, telecommunications providers, in preference litigation seeking to avoid and recover approximately $5 million which plaintiff alleged arose out of a reselling agreement. During the course of the litigation, defendants established that plaintiffs’ business was a fraudulent Ponzi scheme perpetrated by insiders of the debtor;
• Summary judgment in favor of his client, an architectural window and door manufacturer, based upon application of the economic loss doctrine, on a claim that it supplied defective product for the renovation of a 200+ unit beachfront property;
• Settlement of a patent infringement case brought against the provider of job locator software and its customers for a de minimus amount. The terms of the settlement included a perpetual software license for the client and its customers;
• Significant settlement on behalf of a widow and children of decedent against various manufacturers, component providers, HVAC contractors, etc., for causing the death of the decedent by electrocution while he was servicing a defective heating system in a public school;
• Dismissal of electronic component manufacturer client from a products liability case seeking compensation for property damage in excess of $500,000. His client was released with $0 contribution to the settlement;
• Injunction enforcing continuous operation requirement of commercial lease and enjoining defendants from closing a retail outlet in the mall in violation of their lease.

Obermayer has been Steve’s professional home for most of his career. He is a partner in the firm’s Litigation Department and the Intellectual Property Litigation Group.

Steve is a member of the:

• State Civil & Federal Courts Committees of the Philadelphia Bar Association;
• Professional Liability Committee of the Civil Litigation Section of the Pennsylvania Bar Association; and
• Business Torts Litigation & Professional Liability Litigation Committees of the American Bar Association.

Steve is a pro bono volunteer with the Burlington County, New Jersey courts and a volunteer with Big Brothers, Big Sisters. He is also the vice president of the University of Pennsylvania Class of 1985 and a baseball and basketball coach with the Mount Laurel, New Jersey schools.

Awards Won*

*Click here for a description of the standard or methodology on which the awards and honors are based. No aspect of this advertisement is approved by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.