Attorneys

Richard L. Caplan joined Timoney Knox as a Partner in 2005, having been a principal of Caplan & Luber, LLP for more than seventeen years. He is now the Partner in charge of the Firm's Lancaster, Pennsylvania, office.

Mr. Caplan received a Bachelor of Arts Degree magna cum laude from Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania. He did his graduate work at Columbia University in New York City as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. After a stint in private industry (he was an early computer programming pioneer), Mr. Caplan entered The New York University School of Law and received his Juris Doctor Degree cum laude.

Upon graduation, Mr. Caplan worked for the New York County District Attorney and became a member of the Homicide Trial Bureau. He then served as law clerk to the Honorable Anthony J. Celebrezze of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Judicial Circuit. While there, he drafted a judicial opinion resolving one of the earliest challenges to the federal Endangered Species Act (the famous "snail darter" case). Upon completion of his clerkship, Mr. Caplan became an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, where he tried criminal cases on behalf of the United States. He ended his government service as a Trial Attorney in the Fraud Section of the United States Department of Justice.

Mr. Caplan's current practice focuses on complex litigation in a broad range of areas. He has tried cases in state and federal courts across the United States and has successfully briefed and argued appeals before all of Pennsylvania's appellate courts. He has repeatedly served as chairman of court-appointed arbitration panels.

Mr. Caplan has handled a wide variety of matters over his many years as an attorney.  A representative sampling of these matters would include:

• Represented a Fortune 500 company in a multimillion dollar breach of contract action involving the vendor of one of the company's vital raw materials.
• Litigated a variety of industrial product liability actions, on behalf of plaintiffs, involving diverse products including heavy mining machinery, airplanes, manufacturing equipment, building products and consumer goods. In one of these cases, the jury returned a plaintiffs' verdict of nearly $8,000,000.
• Retained by Welch Foods as special litigation counsel to represent the cooperative in federal litigation which prevented the finance company that held the mortgage on a cogeneration power plant, which supported the thermal energy requirements of the client's largest food processing plant, from forcing termination of the power plant's operations.
• Served as General Solicitor to the City of Chester (PA) Housing Authority, representing its interests in receivership proceedings administered by Judge Norma Shapiro of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Responsibilities include litigating or otherwise disposing of multi-million dollar construction claims against the Authority, advising on regulatory compliance issues and overseeing staff attorneys in addressing landlord-tenant disputes.
• Defended high level executives of a large environmental remediation and hazardous waste recycling company and the corporation itself against the most ambitious civil enforcement proceeding initiated (at that time) by the New Jersey Department of Environment Protection.
• Represented a major metal recycling company and related entities in litigation to obtain insurance coverage for multi-million dollar CERCLA liabilities from a number of carriers that had initially denied coverage in reliance upon pollution exclusions and other policy provisions.
• Represented the corporate owner of an 80 megawatt electric power plant in litigation against a regulated electric utility to prevent the utility from unilaterally terminating its power purchase agreement with the independent producer (succeeded in obtaining injunctive relief against the utility). Represented the same client in litigation against the designer and builder of the power plant asserting claims of negligent design and construction.
• Defended a well known motion picture actor in a civil action by an individual claiming breach of an oral agreement to find the plaintiff roles in several of my client's successful movie ventures.
• Provided representation to the owners of a large, renovated premises that suffered interior air contamination attributable to the clients' extensive use of imported, finished grade plywood fabricated with glues containing excessively high concentrations of formaldehyde.
• Represented a wealthy industrialist in a protracted divorce and child custody case in which first impression legal issues were successfully litigated at the appellate level on three separate occasions.
• Represented minority owners of a closely held corporation claiming violation of fiduciary duty and related predatory behavior by the dominant shareholder of the enterprise and the law firm representing the entity.
• Represented the founder of a popular music performance group in defense of an declaratory judgment action intended to stop the arbitration of claims by the client against fellow band members for breach of contract and related predatory practices.
• Litigated several wrongful death cases arising from fatal injuries sustained in automobile accidents.
  

Mr. Caplan has served as an elected member of the Ephrata Area Board of School Directors. He also was a member of the Board of Directors of The Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit (13) and is currently a board member of the Ephrata Education Foundation.