Thomas Duffy

A propane tank ruptured aboard a Philadelphia food truck on July 1, 2014, killing the truck's owner and her 17-year-old daughter and burning a teenage girl who was helping in the business. Less than a week before the case was set for trial, U-Haul agreed in June 2018 to pay $160 million, plus an additional confidential amount, to resolve the claims of all four victims, with $54.35 million allocated to the girl, identified in press accounts only as Jane Doe because she was still a minor. Plaintiffs' lawyers said her share was the largest settlement ever paid to a minor in Pennsylvania state court history. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that she was represented by lawyers including Thomas J. Duffy. Because she was a minor, the agreement had to be approved by a judge in the Orphans' Court division of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.

A Philadelphia judge vacated this $44.9 million medical malpractice verdict against Temple University Hospital in December 2024 and ordered a new trial, finding the jury's liability answers internally inconsistent and its damages award illogical and exorbitant. The award does not stand, and the claim remains unresolved.

Leroy Rice, a forklift operator, was left permanently paralyzed on September 18, 2001, when a storage racking system at his Philadelphia warehouse job collapsed and dropped roughly a ton of frozen food on him. A Philadelphia jury awarded him $12,400,000 at a second trial in 2010, after the Superior Court reversed the first trial's judgment and ordered a new trial on damages, and the trial court molded that verdict to $17,339,797.30 to add delay damages. The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the judgment against racking manufacturer Interlake Material Handling Inc. on February 22, 2012, according to contemporaneous legal-press coverage. Thomas J. Duffy Jr. is named in the trial court's opinion as counsel for Rice.

A Philadelphia family physician suffered a concussion, multiple fractures and a nerve injury to her left arm when the Toyota Sienna she had rented lost its steering and brakes and rolled down a ravine in upstate New York in March 2008. Her lawyers traced the crash to a maintenance failure rather than a design defect: the dealership that serviced the van had inspected it 97 days before she rented it without following Toyota's own maintenance manual, and the right front ball joint separated. A Philadelphia jury returned $11,369,500 in her favor against the dealership alone in March 2013. The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed in October 2014, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined review in June 2015, leaving the award final.