The Philadelphia judge who dismissed the first McCullom Lake brain cancer lawsuit has been reassigned to family court and a new judge has been assigned to the case as both sides await an appeal ruling.

A Jan. 3 order by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court approves the transfer of Judge Allan Tereshko from the civil court’s trial division, more than two months after he resigned as its supervising judge under criticism for his handling of an unrelated case. A state appellate court that last October overturned his 2011 ruling in favor of a defendant insurance company chastised him for not disclosing his wife’s employment with the law firm representing it.

A separate panel of judges on the appellate court, which in Pennsylvania is called the Superior Court, is in the process of deciding whether Tereshko overstepped his bounds when he dismissed the first of 33 lawsuits alleging that pollution from the Rohm and Haas chemical plant in Ringwood caused a cluster of brain and pituitary tumors in and around McCullom Lake.