Results

We secured summary judgment for a law firm by successfully arguing that its role in implementing and overseeing a client’s anti-money laundering policies did not encompass the accounting functions the accounting firm had agreed to perform, and that there was no evidence the law firm acted negligently. The underlying malpractice claim was brought by a check cashing company against its accountants, alleging that the accounting firm failed to detect thefts committed by one of the company’s employees. The accounting firm, in turn, filed a third-party contribution claim against the law firm, contending that the firm should have detected the employee’s thefts through its work overseeing the company’s anti-money laundering policies. The Court rejected the accounting firm’s arguments, granted our motion for summary judgment, and dismissed the contribution claim.

We obtained denial of a motion for emergency injunctive relief in a data center case. Two pro se plaintiffs filed a complaint and a motion for emergency injunctive relief following a township planning commission's meeting to discuss conditional review of a proposed data center development plan. The plaintiffs asserted various violations under Pennsylvania's Sunshine Act and related public meeting statutory requirements. Following a hearing wherein witness testimony was presented and cross examined, the court issued an order denying the motion for injunctive relief, finding that no immediate and irreparable harm existed relative to the planning commission’s meeting and the purported Sunshine Act violations.

We secured a voluntary dismissal with prejudice in a legal malpractice action pending in the Supreme Court of New York County. The case stemmed from the sale of a high-end gym in New York, where the plaintiff alleged that the seller’s attorney failed to place tenant improvement funds into escrow during the transaction. Recovery was obtained on certain claims, but the claim for tenant improvement funds was unsuccessful. The subsequent legal malpractice action alleged that the seller’s attorney’s handling of the transaction was the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s losses. In defense of the claim, we impleaded the attorney who handled the underlying litigation, asserting that his representation and litigation strategy contributed to the alleged damages. After unsuccessful efforts to dismiss the third-party action, including motions to dismiss and reargue, the third-party defendant ultimately advised that the plaintiff wished to discontinue the action. The matter concluded with a dismissal with prejudice, eliminating a claimed exposure of more than $476,000.

We secured a significant victory in a catastrophic injury workers’ compensation matter involving an above-knee amputation and approximately $2 million in past medical bills. After more than a year of litigation, the claimant sought an order requiring payment of medical expenses for which certain providers had intervened and were pursuing their own claims through separate counsel. We argued that the intervenors’ bills were not properly before the court and should not be included in the order. The court agreed and, as a result, the claimant’s counsel was not entitled to a potential 25% fee on the approximately $2 million in intervenors’ medical bills, preserving up to approximately $500,000 in potential savings. The ruling also preserved the client’s ability to negotiate the outstanding medical bills rather than requiring their immediate payment.

We secured a dismissal of all claims against a seller’s realtor following a favorable no-cause arbitration award through the New Jersey Arbitration Program. This case alleged misrepresentation and violations of the Consumer Fraud Act based on information contained in the MLS listing for the property. The property never went to closing, and the plaintiffs bought another house for a lower purchase price. The arbitrator found that there was no breach of contract and no meeting of the minds to substantiate the claims, based on this deal never going to closing, and the property never being transferred to plaintiffs.

We secured a defense verdict on behalf of the driver of a golf cart involved in an incident at a Delaware campground resort. The plaintiff alleged serious injuries, including shoulder and orbital fractures, post-concussive symptoms, a subsequent back injury, and more than $600,000 in past and future medical expenses. We presented expert testimony from the State of Delaware’s Chief Forensic Toxicologist establishing that the plaintiff's blood alcohol concentration was between .19 and .24 at the time of the incident, which likely contributed to her fall from the golf cart. After trial, the Sussex County jury returned a defense verdict in favor of our client.

We prosecuted a Termination Petition involving a 71-year-old certified nursing assistant who suffered a work injury to the lumbar spine with a pre-existing back condition, the latter of which the claimant denied. The defense medical expert, a Board-certified orthopedic surgeon with a specialty in surgical treatment of spinal injuries, examined the claimant and his opinions were found competent, credible and persuasive supporting a full recovery. The judge rejected claimant’s medical expert as not credible even though he attempted to support an aggravation of her underlying degenerative disc disease. The judge further rejected claimant’s testimony given her efforts to unequivocally deny prior back injury going as far as to say it would be a lie to say she had a prior low back injury despite the medical records that clearly demonstrated prior treatment along with medication for her lumbar spine. Also, the demonstration of her sporadic treatment further supported a lack of credibility as did favorable surveillance showing her active.  

We secured dismissal of a lawsuit which alleged constitutional violations pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983. He argued that the claim was not ripe because the plaintiff’s conviction had never been vacated or terminated in the plaintiff’s favor. Under the “favorable termination” requirement pronounced in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1984), and later discussed in McDonough v. Smith, 588 U.S. 109 (2019), 42 U.S.C. §1983 cannot be used to pursue alleged constitutional violations unless and until the underlying criminal conviction was vacated or otherwise terminated.

We recently secured a favorable verdict in a high-value property damage claim following an extensive Palm Beach County jury trial. The plaintiff sought more than $1.3 million in damages after water from a broken pipe spigot on an upstairs balcony damaged the master suite of the plaintiff’s 3,400-square-foot, $4.5 million luxury oceanfront condominium. Because liability was stipulated, the trial focused solely on the amount and scope of damages, consisting of repair/remediation costs to the master suite together with the plaintiff's claim for 21 months of loss of use at a valuation of $33,000 per month totaling $673,000. The defense successfully demonstrated that the plaintiff was not entitled to compensation for the majority of the claimed loss-of-use period (16 months). The jury awarded only five months of loss-of-use damages, along with nearly $200,000 in repair and restoration costs, substantially reducing the plaintiff's overall recovery to only $364,615.

We secured a favorable decision in a Pennsylvania workers’ compensation matter involving a dispute over wage-loss benefits. The parties stipulated that the claimant had sustained a work injury, but left unresolved whether he was entitled to indemnity benefits for the period from June 2, 2025, through November 17, 2025. The claimant testified that the employer had failed to accommodate his work restrictions during that time. In response, we presented testimony from an employer fact witness establishing that the claimant had been provided work within his restrictions without any loss of wages. The judge denied the claim for approximately five months of wage-loss benefits, resulting in a favorable decision for the employer.

We obtained summary judgment on behalf of our client, a life insurance agent, who sold a disability policy to the plaintiff. The plaintiff claimed that the policy was misrepresented to him, and that he was led to believe that if he was ever disabled, he could collect full benefits on the sold policy, as well as another supplemental disability policy he owned through another insurance carrier. When the plaintiff became disabled (nearly two decades after purchasing the initial policy), he discovered that the policies would offset each other to avoid over-recovery. He then filed a lawsuit against the insurance agent, as well as the insurance company, and the referral insurance agent was joined as a third-party defendant in the case. The plaintiff’s demand was in excess of policy limits, and the defense successfully argued a lack of causation and damages to substantiate his claims that an offset would not apply in this case.

Ray Freudiger and Michael A. Roberts (both of Cincinnati) successfully obtained summary judgment on behalf of their client in a coverage dispute arising from a May 19, 2022, motor vehicle accident. A permissive driver operated a box truck for an interstate trucking company and caused severe injuries to two tort victims. Prior to the accident, the insured had procured a commercial auto policy for the trucking company with stated limits of $1,000,000. Following the accident, the insurer initiated a declaratory judgment action asserting that only reduced bodily injury limits of $25,000/$50,000 applied and later counterclaimed, alleging it would not have insured the driver had he been properly submitted for approval under the policy. After extensive discovery, briefing, and oral argument, the court rejected the insurer’s attempt to shift responsibility for the $750,000 in coverage it was legally required to provide for permissive drivers under Ohio law, granting summary judgment in favor of the insured and preserving $750,000 in liability exposure.

We successfully defended an anesthesiologist and pain management physician in a complex medical malpractice matter involving extraarticular facet joint injections which allegedly led to cauda equina syndrome, urinary and fecal incontinence, ED and other serious complications. After six days, a Delaware County jury found on behalf of the physicians. Experts in the case included anesthesiology, pain management, neurosurgery, neurology, neuroradiology, and urology experts. The defense verdict was dependent on successfully relaying the subtle and complex issues in the medical care and the nerves considering the patient’s past medical history, as well as the medications used in the procedure. Plaintiffs were critical of ten different aspects of the doctor’s procedure, but with expert testimony and cross examination, Gary and his team were able to prevail. 

We successfully obtained a no-cause jury verdict in a 13-day wrongful death trial. The decedent, a 59-year-old man, was admitted to the emergency room on February 15, 2019, with complaints of abdominal pain, decreased appetite, and constipation, despite the use of laxatives. The patient did not complain of any nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea. He had a significant medical history including diabetes, hypertension, prior coronary artery stenting, morbid obesity (with past gastric bypass surgery), longstanding ventral hernia, and back pain. A CT scan revealed multiple hernias and a potential closed-loop bowel obstruction, leading to a surgery consultation. Our client, an emergency general surgeon, interpreted that the patient did not have a closed loop or any significant obstruction and recommended non-surgical management. The patient was approved to have clear liquids, and had a vomiting incident shortly after, but our client was not notified. The patient was returned to NPO status, and after improving overnight, he was returned to “clears” and additional medical and renal consults were ordered. Our client did not receive any communications from the residents/nurses of any changes in the patient’s condition. On February 18, 2019, two rapid responses were called due to increased heart rate and vomiting. It is believed that the vomiting resulted in aspiration, causing sepsis, ultimately leading to the patient’s death. During the trial, the plaintiff’s sole medical expert highlighted imaging on the wrong hernia, which called into question all of his opinions in the case. We made key objections related to the expert testimony, limiting what the allegations were, and preventing new allegations from being made. After approximately two and a half hours of deliberating, the jury returned a no-cause verdict. 

We received a unanimous defense verdict of behalf of our clients. The plaintiff was a seven-year-old girl who presented with a sacral aneurysmal bone cyst, an expansile, lytic lesion that destroyed sacral bone and was causing compression on her lower lumbar and sacral nerve roots. The plaintiff experienced the inability to control her bladder and bowel post-operatively, and had no sensation in her sex organs. The plaintiff’s experts alleged that the lower sacral nerve roots were transected by the defendants during the surgery, most likely by cinching them via a negligently placed suture circumferentially around the thecal sac. The defendants (and their experts) denied that such a suture was placed. They also contended that the nerves were not transected, but instead were further injured by the necessary manipulation involved in removing the tumor — a recognized and accepted potential complication of this type of surgery. After deliberation, the jury delivered a verdict in favor of our clients.

We obtained a defense verdict on behalf of a major Philadelphia healthcare provider after a contentious six-day trial. After undergoing a kidney transplant, a patient suffered complications in post-operative care and died a day after the surgery. The plaintiffs were critical of the post-operative care, claiming the physicians failed to take the patient back to the operating room in light of post-op bleeding. The hospital and physicians maintained that the post-procedure complications were related to previously unknown liver issues that resulted in liver failure/liver shock that created an unstable condition and prevented re-operation. While the family presented a very sympathetic case, Gary was able to prove, through the science and medicine, that the doctors acted appropriately and did not cause the woman’s passing.

In a case successfully tried by John Slimm, attorney in Marshall Dennehey’s Mount Laurel, NJ office, a New Jersey court upheld the 2024 board election of a major Atlantic City condominium association, rejecting claims that the process was fraudulent or fundamentally unfair. Although the court acknowledged that the community had become sharply divided and that the election season was marked by tension and mistrust, it found that the association’s procedures complied with its governing documents and state requirements. The ballot‑handling methods challenged by the plaintiffs—including coded envelopes and signatureless absentee ballots—had been formally adopted, disclosed to residents, and overseen by a neutral third‑party inspector. Throughout the litigation, the plaintiffs pointed to a series of alleged irregularities, from ballot‑collection events to delays in providing voter lists to candidates. Slimm emphasized that while these issues may have caused frustration, they did not amount to intentional misconduct or anything that could have changed the outcome. The court agreed, noting that Honest Ballot, the independent inspector, verified voter eligibility, processed challenges, and certified the results. Plaintiffs, by contrast, offered no credible evidence of ballot stuffing, fraudulent voting, or systemic disenfranchisement. The court also rejected arguments that the absence of signature verification invalidated the election, finding that neither the Master Deed nor New Jersey regulations require signatures as part of the voting process. What the rules do require—proof of eligibility and a verifiable counting method—was satisfied through the use of coded envelopes, government‑issued identification, and inspector review. Likewise, while “ballot harvesting” events did occur, Slimm successfully argued that the election rules did not prohibit bulk ballot submission, and the court found no evidence that these events altered the results. Ultimately, the court concluded that the plaintiffs had not met their burden to show fraud, illegality, or any systemic deprivation of voting rights. It declined to order a new election or impose new election procedures, instead encouraging the community to consider adopting more transparent practices voluntarily in the future. Thanks to the arguments advanced by Jack, the action was dismissed with prejudice, the 2024 election results were confirmed, and the current board remains firmly in place.

Daniel D. Krebbs, with support from Osama Samad (all of Philadelphia) secured an outstanding trial result in a Delaware County motor vehicle case where plaintiffs claimed significant injuries from a rear end collision, treated for months, underwent nerve blocks and ablations, and each presented life care plans exceeding $500,000. Their last demand was $98,500 per plaintiff, and they accused the carrier of bad faith failure to settle within limits. During opening statements, the jury audibly reacted when informed that plaintiffs’ medical expert had been paid $1.5 million in 2024 by plaintiffs’ counsel. Liability and causation were admitted, so the trial focused solely on damages. The jury initially returned a zero damages verdict before being instructed to deliberate further. Ten minutes later, they awarded $500 to each plaintiff — a resounding defense win.

Christopher Block and Paul Lanza (both of Roseland) successfully obtained a defense verdict in a trucking accident in New Jersey. The plaintiff claimed that our client merged into her lane at the George Washington Bridge toll plaza causing her to sustain neck and back injuries for which she underwent two spinal surgeries. Our client testified that both of their lanes ended and, because they were required to merge, he had the right-of-way since the front of his truck was ahead of the front of her vehicle. Our accident reconstruction expert confirmed that our driver had the right-of-way and opined that plaintiff was the sole cause of the accident. We also disputed the causation of plaintiff’s alleged injuries based on the very limited property damage to her vehicle, as well as the fact that she had prior, similar injuries. After a little more than an hour of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict finding that our driver was not negligent. The trial team was assisted by associate attorney Haleigh Catalano and paralegal Kelly Dermody who provided critical support with motions in limine and trial management.

Carol VanderWoude (Philadelphia) obtained reversal of a trial court’s order overruling preliminary objections as to venue. The plaintiff filed suit in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas alleging negligence for injuries sustained in a car accident. The accident occurred in Lebanon County between the plaintiff’s vehicle and a school bus driven by an employee of defendant transportation company. The corporate defendant provided transportation services to school districts in Lebanon and Lancaster Counties, and had no clients in Philadelphia County. The trial court overruled the preliminary objections to venue, reasoning the act of transporting students into Philadelphia for approximately two-dozen field trips during the pertinent school year satisfied the quality-quantity venue analysis. The Superior Court disagreed. It was persuaded by the arguments raised on appeal and reversed. The court held that the field trips simply aided in the corporate defendant’s main purpose of providing transportation services as directed by its clients located outside Philadelphia County, and that those field trips were not conducted regularly enough to satisfy the quantity portion of the venue analysis. The venue ruling was interlocutory and not appealable, but the Superior Court granted permission to immediately appeal the ruling so the venue issue could be resolved at the outset of the case.

We convinced the Superior Court of Pennsylvania to vacate a $1.09 billion jury verdict and remand for a new trial.  The court held that the jury had not been properly instructed on the elements of a crashworthiness claim under Pennsylvania law. The court's ruling received press coverage in both The Legal Intelligencer and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

We received summary judgment in a vehicular accident case involving disputed liability. Mr. Thurman was the third vehicle in a three-car collision in which the first vehicle admitted fault and was ticketed. Following the accident, the plaintiffs claimed they were in a fourth vehicle and alleged that Mr. Thurman caused the crash. When the claim was denied—and on the eve of the implementation of tort reform—the plaintiffs filed individual lawsuits against Mr. Thurman alone. We subpoenaed the repair shop that serviced Mr. Thurman’s vehicle and obtained records confirming that there was no front-end damage. When the plaintiffs failed to respond to discovery, we prepared motions for summary judgment in both cases. In response, only one plaintiff submitted an affidavit, while Mr. Thurman provided his own affidavit denying the allegations. We argued the motions, demonstrating that the evidence showed the plaintiffs were not involved in the collision and that Mr. Thurman bore no fault. The court ruled in our favor in both cases. Before the orders could be entered, however, the plaintiffs filed notices of voluntary dismissal with prejudice. Before moving for summary judgment, we had served Proposals for Settlement on the plaintiffs and their counsel. After the dismissals, we filed a motion establishing entitlement to attorney’s fees, and the parties ultimately reached an agreement resolving all fees and costs in both cases.

We secured a defense verdict on behalf of an oral surgeon in a medical malpractice matter. The plaintiff alleged that our client deviated from accepted standards of care when extracting four wisdom teeth resulting in permanent injury to the inferior alveolar nerve. The jury returned a unanimous verdict for the defense.

We won summary judgment in a foodborne illness wrongful death case. The plaintiff filed a wrongful death action against multiple parties, including the seafood supplier, distributors, transporters and the restaurant that served the decedent. The plaintiff alleged the decedent died as a result of eating raw oysters that contained vibrio vulnificus. We represented the supplier and argued there was no evidence the oysters were defective when they left the supplier’s hands. An expert was retained to support our motion for summary judgment. The expert prepared an affidavit citing the applicable duties pertaining to the harvesting, processing, and transportation of the oysters and stated the supplier did not breach any of the applicable duties. Utilizing calculated pressure tactics in a long-term strategy execution, plaintiff’s counsel eventually conceded that the record evidence did not support a finding that the supplier breached its duties, resulting in the court granting summary judgment. The case remains ongoing with multimillion dollar demands against the remaining defendants.

We obtained a significant win in a New York Labor Law action, securing partial summary judgment for a municipal library and defeating the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment on liability. The plaintiff alleged negligence and violations of Labor Law §§ 200, 240 and 241(6) after sustaining injuries when roof trusses collapsed on a construction project managed by a co-defendant on property owned by the municipal library. He claimed the collapse resulted from inadequate bracing. Following discovery, the plaintiff sought summary judgment under Labor Law § 240, asserting absolute liability against the library as the property owner. We opposed the motion and sought partial summary judgment dismissing all claims against the non-property-owning clients, all but the § 240 claim against the library, dismissal of the co-defendant’s cross-claims, and contractual and common law indemnification from the plaintiff’s employer. The court denied the plaintiff’s motion after finding questions of fact as to whether the plaintiff was the sole proximate cause of the accident. The court also granted our motion, dismissing all claims against the non-property-owning clients, all but the § 240 claim against the library, dismissing the co-defendant’s cross-claims, and granting the library unconditional contractual indemnification from the plaintiff’s employer prior to any finding of liability.

We received a defense verdict after bench trial in an insurance exclusionary clause dispute. The plaintiff’s personal property in a storage unit was damaged when a municipal water main broke outside the storage facility. The claims representative offered the full policy limits before trial. However, the plaintiff sought recovery of the full claim amount for her damaged property. We argued that her recovery was specifically excluded by the water damage exclusion provision within her insurance policy. The judge agreed and concluded that the water main was part of a containment system for water and the exclusionary clause was applicable.

We obtained summary judgment on behalf of two homeowners in a premises liability action. One of the homeowners called his father, the plaintiff, asking him to come to his house because he was having his roof replaced and had concerns about the work being done. The plaintiff arrived at the home and observed nails and other debris strewn about the entire property. Nonetheless, he entered the property to assess the roofing work and took care to avoid stepping on any nails. As he was leaving the property, he stepped on a nail, which went through his foot. The plaintiff asserted claims of negligence against both homeowners and also attempted to assert that, because his son requested that he come to inspect the roofing work, he was a business invitee rather than a licensee. We argued that the plaintiff was a licensee as he was a social guest who was merely providing advice to his son. They further argued that the homeowners owed no duty to the plaintiff as he knew the nails were strewn about the property and he understood the risk involved in walking there. We also argued that the plaintiff’s claim was barred by assumption of risk because as he was aware of the nails on the property and, nonetheless, voluntarily proceeded to walk onto the property. The court agreed and granted summary judgment in favor of the homeowners.

We were granted summary judgment in a slip-and-fall case where the plaintiff claimed to have slipped and fell on snow/ice in a parking lot when getting into her car. Our client and one of the co-defendants had property lines next to each other. Based on the accident report, the plaintiff’s testimony and our expert report, we argued that the plaintiff did not fall on our property and, as a result, we owed her no duty. The judge agreed and dismissed all claims against our client.

After an 11-day, hard-fought trial, we prevailed and obtained a defense verdict on behalf of four physicians and a major teaching hospital in Philadelphia. The medical malpractice action involved the labor and delivery of a baby later alleged to have a hypoxic birth injury that caused developmental delays and permanent brain damage, among other issues. The plaintiffs’ experts boarded $21 million in future medical costs to take care of the child, and the demand in the pretrial was commensurate with those numbers.  

We received a favorable decision that saved our client millions of dollars. The claimant filed a claim petition alleging he sustained a left shoulder dislocation, stroke, traumatic brain injury, gait dysfunction, central pain syndrome and post-traumatic seizures as a result of a fall at work. After the claimant fell at work and sustained a left shoulder dislocation, he went to the hospital for the dislocation, was treated and discharged. Four days later he sustained a stroke at home. He had multiple surgeries and was hospitalized for four months. He is severely disabled as a result of the stroke and requires full-time care. The claimant initially alleged he sustained a head injury from the fall at work which caused the stroke. He claimed he was bleeding from his nose and mouth and had a laceration to his forehead. We were able to show that did not occur by presenting fact witnesses who established the claimant fell off one step, never hit his head, was not bleeding from his head or face, only dislocated his shoulder, and was discharged home without issue. Claimant’s counsel then alleged the claimant’s stroke was related to a spike in his high blood pressure that placed him in a hypertensive crisis resulting in the stroke. We showed that the claimant had unregulated high blood pressure before the work injury and that he was released from the hospital with high blood pressure, but not enough to be in hypertensive crisis. The judge agreed with our arguments, finding that the claimant only sustained the agreed-upon shoulder dislocation. Therefore, the claimant was awarded one day of wage loss benefits for the shoulder dislocation. The stroke, traumatic brain injury, gait dysfunction, central pain syndrome, and post traumatic seizures were denied and dismissed. As the claimant is only 48 years old and his compensation rate resulted in $30,000 a year wage loss benefit, wage loss for the rest of his life would likely have been around $1 million. The claimant’s medical costs were going to be much higher as he requires round-the-clock care, which over his lifetime would have cost millions. His hospital bills alone were over $1 million, and claimant’s counsel would have argued for home modifications and vehicle modifications. Instead, the claimant will receive a one-day payment of about $88.