Matt Casey — Founding Partner

In 2022 alone, Casey recovered more than $125 million in individual cases, including a product liability brain injury case, multiple hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) / cerebral palsy birth injury cases, several cases involving stroke misdiagnosis, and death cases involving children.

One 2022 case that Casey tried to a jury verdict resulted in an $18 million award that, after delay damages were added, totaled $19.16 million. Reported to be the largest known jury award in the history of Chester County, Pa., the case involved the failure to diagnose and treat breast cancer in a young woman.

During that most recent trial, Casey convinced the jury that medical personnel failed to send the woman, then 22, for a proper diagnostic workup after she presented to the office not once but twice in as many weeks with complaints of a palpable mass in her right breast. Had that been done, her cancer would have been diagnosed earlier, before it invaded her lymph nodes, and she would have had a much better chance of being cured. Instead, her life expectancy has been greatly diminished due to a 9-month delay caused by medical negligence.

One glance at the long list of cases that Casey has resolved for record amounts provides a window into the success of his catastrophic injury practice.

Even during the pandemic, with courts closed for more than a year, Casey settled cases for $29.5 million, $27 million, $18.5 million, $18 million, $14 million, and $12.2 million. And during the same time, he settled many other cases for seven-figure values.

For Casey, the results build on a similar series of legal victories over the prior five years in which he recovered an astonishing $547 million.

Some noteworthy examples from 2016-2020 include:

• A $45.5 million settlement in a hospital critical care case
• A $29 million settlement for a child who suffered a brain injury
• A settlement in a major gun safety case on behalf of the families of three individuals killed in the aftermath of an illegal gun ammunition sale at a Pennsylvania Walmart (amount confidential) 
• A $25 million product defect settlement against an automobile manufacturer on behalf of a man who suffered a brain injury following a vehicle accident
• A $22.5 million recovery for a brain injury caused by the failure to treat an aneurysm
• A $19.5 million settlement for a baby with neurological damage
• A $19.5 million settlement in a product defect case involving a man injured at work by dangerous equipment
• A $19.5 million recovery for a boy with cerebral palsy
• A $19.3 million settlement for neurological injuries occurring during delivery
• A $19.25 million recovery in a case involving meningitis
• A $19.25 million settlement in a case involving medical malpractice that caused a baby’s brain injury
• A $17.5 million settlement for a stroke that caused paralysis
• A $14 million recovery in a case involving negligent obstetric care
• A $13 million recovery for neurological injuries during childbirth
• A $12 million settlement for a woman left wheelchair-bound as a result of an infection
• An $11 million settlement in a cancer case
• A $10 million settlement for an elderly woman who suffered a stroke
• A $9.8 million recovery in a medical negligence case for a man who suffered visual impairment

Casey is among the very few lawyers in the state’s history who have multiple seven and multiple eight-figure jury verdicts to his credit. Casey has won six eight-figure verdicts in catastrophic injury cases and has settled many more for eight-figure values.

Casey’s practice specializes in cases involving brain and spinal cord injuries. He has amassed an unmatched record of victories in these highly complex types of cases, including recent recoveries of $29 million, $26.3 million, $22.9 million, and $20 million.

Casey has handled some of the state's most high-profile cases. He won remarkable settlements in the tragic 2019 bacterial outbreak at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania.

The cases involved three premature babies who acquired pseudomonas infections, two of whom died as a result and a third who sustained a brain injury. They fell seriously ill at Geisinger's neonatal intensive care unit due to the hospital's failure to properly sanitize the equipment used to prepare donor breast milk, which led to the contamination.

The settlements reached by Casey (terms confidential) came after eight months of litigation. In a written statement, Geisinger's CEO said the hospital "recognizes Mr. Casey's advocacy on behalf of these families." And The New York Times noted it was "extraordinary" that a hospital admitted "fault as a condition of a civil settlement."

Casey also reached a settlement with Geisinger Health System (terms confidential) in the highly publicized wrongful death case involving the late Jennifer Sidari, the 26-year-old physician from Northeastern Pennsylvania who died of a blood clot in her head as she was set to embark on a promising medical career. The settlement came after what newspapers described as days of “damaging testimony” elicited by Casey against the defendant.

In 2019, Casey won an extraordinary $40.5 million verdict in a case that involved medical negligence that led to a baby’s brain injury, and the settlement in the case now means the injured child will receive all of the care she needs for the remainder of her life.

Casey’s success over the past few years is no anomaly, however. He has been winning notable recoveries since becoming a lawyer.

In late 2014, Casey settled a landmark and record-setting bad-faith case against the largest insurance company in America for $22 million.

The case involved the insurer’s refusal to pay a $250,000 policy to a man who was catastrophically injured in a Philadelphia car crash. The September 2014 settlement, which followed a $19.1 million jury verdict won by Casey in the case, is the largest insurance bad-faith settlement in Pennsylvania history and the largest involving a motor vehicle in the nation, according to VerdictSearch, a leading publisher of verdicts and settlements.

Casey gained national media attention for successfully litigating civil cases against Penn State University on behalf of seven sexual assault victims of former football coach Jerry Sandusky. Casey prominently represented Victims 2, 3, 7, and 10, Sandusky’s adopted son, Matt Sandusky, as well as other victims.

Ross Feller Casey handled more victim claims than any other single law firm and was integral in finalizing a $60 million global settlement with Penn State.

Casey won a stunning, record-setting $85 million compensatory damages jury verdict in a Philadelphia premises liability case on behalf of Marcus Gustafsson, a 30-year-old University of Pennsylvania medical student who injured his spinal cord in a 20-foot fall through an open manhole. Casey proved that the company that owned and operated manholes throughout the city had prior notice that its covers were being removed.

Just moments before the jury announced its mammoth verdict, Casey, with his client’s authority, rejected a $10 million settlement offer made by the AIG insurance company. According to Lawyers USA, the outcome was the largest personal injury verdict in the U.S. for 2008. It is also the largest premises liability verdict in Pennsylvania history and the second-largest compensatory verdict ever in the state.

Casey also recovered $31 million (as co-counsel) in a 2014 case that involved a product defect that caused paralysis.

Casey obtained a $23.1 million jury verdict in a Lehigh County, Pa., case involving medical negligence by a home care nurse who failed to properly evaluate and timely report Sharlee Ann Smoyer’s infected catheter. The delay led to a bloodstream infection that ultimately caused Smoyer, 55, to have both legs amputated below the knees.

The eight-figure verdict in 2011 was among the highest ever for a medical malpractice case in Lehigh County and was among the highest verdicts of its kind in Pennsylvania over the prior decade.

Just months earlier, Casey won a $10 million jury verdict for a 63-year-old man who was misdiagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Casey successfully argued that his client, Eric Davenport, never suffered from the fatal neuromuscular disease and that the misdiagnosis delayed treatment for his actual condition, a spinal cord compression. Davenport, as a result, was left permanently wheelchair-bound. The verdict against a noted ALS specialist was nearly twice the largest medical malpractice verdict in Philadelphia for all of 2010.

In September of 2013, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied the final defense appeal, and Davenport recovered the full amount of the jury’s verdict, plus interest, which totaled in excess of $11.7 million.

Casey won a $6.4 million jury verdict for the children of a Philadelphia man who died as a result of medical negligence.

Two Temple University Hospital emergency room doctors misdiagnosed Derrick Harlem’s heart condition as pneumonia and discharged him only for him to die of a massive heart attack months later, the jury found. Handed down in May 2012, the verdict is among the largest in years in Pennsylvania for a medical malpractice case involving a death. The verdict was paid in full.

Casey obtained a $10 million settlement in a case of a 40-year-old welder who was killed when a pressurized tank he was working on exploded. Reached after the second day of trial testimony, the settlement is one of the largest ever reported in Pennsylvania for a product liability case involving a single death.

Casey has a proven record of taking on the tough cases with tenacity and has never shied from the powerful entities he faces.

When Jeffrey Davis was killed in an oil refinery explosion at Motiva Enterprises in Delaware City, Delaware, Casey, as co-counsel with another lawyer, spearheaded the discovery in the ensuing wrongful death case.

Casey analyzed more than 40,000 documents and probed beyond the cursory look that the state and federal agencies had taken when investigating the case. The effort revealed that a corroded tank had leaked hydrogen and that this hydrogen was the source of the explosion. Casey also proved that Motiva had been aware of the inherent danger. The case was settled for a stunning $36.4 million, ranking nationwide among the largest single-victim settlements ever for a wrongful death case.

Findings uncovered by the case led to the passage of a new Delaware law governing aboveground storage tanks. It also caught the eye of Philadelphia Magazine, which in 2003 placed Casey among its “It List” of people to watch, tapping him as “The Lawyer” in Philadelphia who would become a household name in the next decade.

The magazine also highlighted Casey’s work in another case, in which he and another lawyer recovered $10.5 million in a product liability case for the family of a kindergartener who was killed when a folding table collapsed on him in a Philadelphia school cafeteria.

Through intensive analysis of thousands of documents and dozens of his depositions, Casey discovered that Midwest Folding Products had been aware of the safety problems connected with its folding tables. In order that other children could also be warned about the potential danger of the folding tables, the settlement in the highly publicized Cozzolino case was not kept confidential.

Casey also served as co-counsel in a succession of noteworthy results earlier in his career. They include:

• A $29.6 million settlement in the Pier 34 collapse in Philadelphia, which killed three people and injured dozens of others
• A $19.1 million jury verdict in a case of a woman who was struck by a vehicle as she worked at a roadside construction site in Hazleton, Pa
• A $12.25 million pre-verdict settlement for a toddler who fell from a window at an apartment complex in Philadelphia when a screen popped out of its casting
• An $8 million settlement for a 23-year-old man injured in a workplace accident
• A $6.6 million jury verdict for the family of an 8-year-old boy who drowned at a summer camp after lifeguards abandoned their post

Geographically, Casey’s success includes victories in regions of Pennsylvania not known as friendly venues for personal injury cases.

For instance, he achieved a $1.5 million settlement in 2004 for the family of a learning-disabled woman who died after giving birth. It is one of the largest medical malpractice settlements ever achieved in Pennsylvania’s conservative-leaning Franklin County.

Also that year, Casey won a $5.2 million jury verdict for a 76-year-old woman who suffered a stroke because doctors improperly read her test results. It was among the largest medical malpractice verdicts in the state in 2004.

In 2006, Casey won a $2.7 million jury verdict for the family of a woman who died after her bowel was perforated during elective surgery. At the time, the outcome was the largest medical malpractice verdict for a case involving death in the history of Lackawanna County, Pa.

Casey graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Notre Dame. He received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.

Martindale-Hubbell has recognized Casey with a “Preeminent” AV peer rating, the highest possible evaluation.