Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Show: Episode 21 – Drew Duffy

Joe Dougherty hosts Partner Andrew Duffy for the Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Show on WWDB Talk 860. Drew discusses the qualities of successful trial attorneys, contingent fees, and impactful cases.

TRANSCRIPT

The following programming is sponsored by Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management, or Beasley Media Group.

Joe Dougherty
Alright ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky show here on WWDB Talk 860. We’ve got a fantastic show. We’re fortunate enough to have a partner here at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky, Andrew Duffy, on the broadcast.

Andrew Duffy
Thanks for having me back.

Joe Dougherty
Well, it’s great to have you and I’m first going to ask you to remind the listeners because you’ve been on the broadcast a number of times, a little bit about yourself and what you do, but also address what a catastrophic injury is. There are a lot of different types of injuries. Some are seemingly not catastrophic, but then they may develop into that.Talk about, because I know here at the firm, you specialize in catastrophic injury.

Andrew Duffy
I guess we can best sum it up, Joe, by saying that I hope my friends, my family, and all of our listeners never need my services. Because being a catastrophic personal injury attorney means that I am getting involved with a family who has either lost a loved one or a loved one has been horrifically injured. They’ve literally had the worst day of their life. Their life is turned upside down. Their ability to earn is turned upside down. Their ability to put food on the table, pay for schools, pay for cars is obliterated. And they come to us and they ask for help. And we have made it our mission to help people on their greatest days of need.

Joe Dougherty
Now when we talk about catastrophic injury, there’s a number of types of catastrophic injury when it comes to personal injury. You specialize in construction cases, automobile type of catastrophic injuries, slip and falls, medical malpractice, there’s a plethora of areas. So I just want to kind of clarify that because the firm really does every one. Let’s start from day one. And maybe don’t even categorize what type of family comes in, horrific injury. They lost someone or they have someone that will never fully recover from their injury.

Andrew Duffy
Our job at first is to listen. For example, I’ve met with far too many families across the table that have lost a loved one, whether that be their father who was an ironworker.

Their father who was a carpenter, their mother who was just innocently driving to work, or God forbid they lost a child. And it’s grueling. I mean, we’re all human beings and to hear about this immense tragedy really affects you. But the one thing that I’ve learned is that everybody that comes into my office who has lost a loved one, they basically want three things.

They want to know what happened. They want a full investigation to find out what happened because they yearn for facts to find out why they lost their loved one. They need answers, that’s important to them. And then once we find out what happened, they want to know who is responsible, who could be held accountable, who can be sued, and who can we go after to make sure, that number three, their most important goal, that this never happens to another family again. That no family ever goes through the emotional trauma, the absolute torture that they are going through. Most families that come into my office have one goal and they say, listen, we’re going through this now. This can’t happen again to anybody. And my loved one will not die in vain. We will make changes.

Joe Dougherty
When it’s a wrongful death, does it come into play how much they suffered?

Andrew Duffy
It does, unfortunately.

Joe Dougherty
Death is as final as it can get. But if somebody burned in a fire and suffered through that, or they died instantly, does that factor in, or is death extreme enough? A family might want to know that to try to find out that their loved one didn’t suffer. It could be the contrary. How does that impact anything?

Andrew Duffy
The law in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, it’s kind of the opposite of what all families want. God forbid you lose a loved one and it happened. You wanted it to happen with no pain and suffering, quick, instantaneous. And that’s what all families hope for. The law is the opposite.

Believe it or not, the defendant who is eventually sued actually benefits from an instantaneous death because the law allows you to recover for the pain and suffering that goes on.

So I have a case right now where the gentleman unfortunately died, but after 11 months of being a quadriplegic, that’s an insane amount of pain and suffering. But I’ve had other cases where there was instantaneous death. And I’ve seen defense attorneys actually stand up in a court of law in front of a jury and try to argue that, hey, well, they died immediately, so don’t give them as much money, which just blows my mind, Joe. It blows my mind. All right, the defendants didn’t slightly injure him, didn’t seriously injure him. They injured him enough to kill him, to take his life away. So they finished the job. And they try to make an argument like there was no pain and self benefit.

Joe Dougherty
You have an expert team of attorneys here. I mean like experience in the hundreds of years. But you have young attorneys, I mean at the beginning of their careers, and they’re going to come in, they’re going to be on your team or one of the other teams. How do you have that conversation? I just got hired here at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. I have an awesome resume.. I might’ve clerked for a judge. The Supreme Court Justice in Pennsylvania. I have a great resume. I’m a new guy. I seem like I’m a hitter and getter. Top of my class everywhere. But this is my third week here and, you know, you are going to have a very tough situation walking through that door.

I know you have a team of young attorneys. How do you prep them? Is there a sensitivity conversation?

I might be the smartest guy in my class, but how can you ever be prepared for the loss of a child or something like that? How do you prep for it? You’ve been doing it so long, but your emotions, and I know professionalism is number one, but you’re a human being. You have the experience. How does somebody, a young person in this business, no matter how smart they are, no matter how good a potential, ever prepare for something like that? How do you gear yourself up, and in your case, over the long haul?

Andrew Duffy
I’ve been doing this for 29 years and each and every time that I sit across the table from a family who’s lost a loved one, it just tears me apart. You don’t show that at the table. You give them the respect they deserve, but you walk out of that meeting and you’re really feeling for them to say the least.

We try very, very hard and have for the most part been successful at hiring not only top notch young attorneys with extreme potential, but more importantly to hire good people. And if you get past that, hiring good people and bringing good people in, then good people know how to conduct themselves sitting across from the family that just lost a loved one. We preach here that this is the single worst day of our clients lives. That they have entrusted us with what ends up being the most important asset in their portfolio, because they’ve lost the ability to earn, they’ve sometimes lost their house, they’ve lost the ability to send their kids to schools they wanted to send them to. And so this lawsuit becomes the most important asset that they’ve entrusted us with. And that’s a solemn and sacred responsibility that we take very seriously.

So we teach that to all of our young attorneys. That there are two things that we demand of you. We demand that you represent the clients to your utmost ability. You put in your time. This is not a nine to five job. This is a very tedious job as far as putting in the time. There are people here to nine, 10 o ‘clock at night, in trial time we’re working 20 hour days. But you work as hard as you can to be the best attorney you can be. But more importantly, you work as hard as you can to be the best person you can be to the clients. Many times our clients don’t only need our legal advice, they need us to be there for them. They need us to solve other issues that come up. And we never say, hey, we’re your lawyers for this, but we’re not your lawyers for that. If it’s a specialized thing that we have to get them somewhere, taxes or something like that, that we don’t do, we’ll take care of them by getting them to the right people.

But for the most part, it’s just being a good person. It goes back to what we all learned in kindergarten, what we all learned from our parents, that just be a good person. All we have in this world is our integrity and our dignity and never allow either to be adversely affected.

Joe Dougherty
The way you’d want somebody to treat yourself and your family had it happened to you is all I believe someone could ask for. Having said that, the insurance company and a lot of the stuff that goes on behalf of negligent parties isn’t quite as sensitive or caring. It can be an incredibly grueling experience for people who try to navigate themselves and all that.

When it comes to having to deal with an insurance company, talk about setting expectations because now you have a family in front of you. They’ve lost maybe a child, which is as bad as it can get, and now you have to prep them based upon setting expectations regarding the ebbs and flows of their type of case.

You know, the range of time that these things, no matter how obvious, something seems. An insurance company is in the business of taking premiums, not paying out. So that could take a couple of years and there could be ebbs and flows. Talk about setting expectations so you can set those individuals up for success and they understand that they’re not stressed out in three weeks because it seems so obvious that their loved one was t -boned at a red light and the insurance company is just not paying up. Discuss the ebbs and flows of a case, setting expectations for success because it could take a couple of years sometimes.

Andrew Duffy
It’s all about respectful and brutal honesty and constant communication. And what I mean is I’ve had clients come in, and it’s been a situation where it’s been egregious negligence that took their loved one from them. And they reasonably as human beings say, well, isn’t the defendant going to just admit fault and isn’t this going to be wrapped up rather quickly? And we do have to set expectations to let them know, well, the defendant doesn’t get to determine that. The defendant will have an insurance company and the insurance companies are, to say the least, ruthless. And they don’t give a damn about who died, who was a father, who had six kids. They don’t from what I’ve seen. It is just numbers. And that takes time to convince the defendant insurance company, a Fortune 500 company, that we’re going the distance. You’re not going to low ball our clients. You’re not going to undersell anything to us. We’re going to a jury and we’re going to let a jury decide.

Because you see Joe, there’s two types of firms out there. And I disparage nobody because everybody in the legal industry works really hard. But the reality is there’s two types of plaintiff’s firms out there. There’s those that take cases to settle them. And they take a lot of cases. And very rarely do they see the courtroom. And that serves a lot of clients very well.

That’s not Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. That’s not what I’ve done for my 20 years here. We take cases to go to trial. We take cases where on day one, we’re thinking about our opening statement. We’re thinking about our closing statement. We’re thinking about posturing the case to give it its greatest chance of success by doing, if it requires taking 70 depositions, we call people in and put them under oath, we’ll take 70 depositions. If it requires spending $3.2 million like we did in the Tropicana Garage collapse to get a $101 million settlement, we’ll do it in a heartbeat. We treat every single case as if it’s going to trial. And along the way, because the insurance companies have us on the list of those that will absolutely take it to distance, and put in the people power and spend the money to do what needs to be done to maximize the recovery for all of our clients, then that’s when the real settlement values start to be offered.

Joe Dougherty
And when I say this, the reputation of the firm speaks for itself. I was going to ask, so of course I’ve heard of the firms that are settling, it’s their business model. They’re just settling cases left and right. This firm has had success at the highest level going to trial. The insurance companies know the revolving door type situations. But when they see Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky they know. Is it true they know what your reputation is as a firm and that you are willing to go to distance?

Andrew Duffy
We are willing, ready, and more than able. Not to get in any way pompous or braggadocious, but my favorite thing to do in the practice of law is try cases. My favorite thing to do is to get in front of a jury and to argue my client’s case. And there is something beautiful about our system of justice when 12 jurors decide who is at fault and who wasn’t.

Joe Dougherty
Ironically, when I asked that question, I wonder if, because that’s the nature of the firm and you’re willing to go the distance and you can afford it, because how many people retain a firm and don’t realize, you mentioned spending $3.2 million on the Tropicana case. Which you know I know intimately, because one of the individuals that passed away was my boss. Because you’re willing to spend. First of all, people don’t realize that you need to have a firm that’s willing to spend and do whatever it takes to get the experts to be able to represent a case and not have to worry about a budget. But because you’ve had so much success and you’re willing to go to court, do you get to go to court less now because now the insurance companies know you’ll go to court and it isn’t worth the risk for them to do it?

Andrew Duffy
That’s the irony, Joe. It’s that you’re absolutely right. We do not get to go to court as much. Sometimes we get to the courthouse steps. Sometimes we get to do opening statements. Eventually they cave. And when I say cave, they offer the number that we demanded for our client.

Joe Dougherty
Because it’s more risky for them not to, in other words, they’re probably, you know, sitting there going ok the bluff is in. These guys are walking up the courtrooms. A jury decision could take us even further than the number that they’re asking.

Andrew Duffy
Absolutely. I’ll give you an example of a recent case. We had a carpenter who was badly, badly burned. So we settled out with most of the defendants. One of the defendants who was left had a rather small insurance policy relative to this case. We wrote him a letter and we said, pay the insurance policy. The case is obviously valued much more than your insurance policy. So go ahead and pay your insurance policy. The insurance company said no, we’re not paying. We said, okay, we’ll give you 15 more days to pay it. They said no. Fifteen days went by, they never paid. So then the trial comes up. Two weeks before trial, they offer a little more money. We say no. Three weeks, one week before trial, they offer the entire amount of the policy. We say too late.

We took that to full verdict. We told them too late, you had your chance. We’ve already spent $100,000 in preparing for trial. That’s money out of our client’s pocket, because they have to pay the cost back legally.

Joe Dougherty
Only if they win. In other words, it doesn’t come out upfront, but it’s at the end.

Andrew Duffy
They don’t have to pay a penalty. And we can get into the contingent fee and how that works. But we said to them, you didn’t pay it on time. We’re going to trial. A Philadelphia jury is going to determine it. And we ended up getting a $15.5 million verdict when they had a pittance of insurance coverage compared to that. And we’re still arguing now through the courts to get them not to just pay what they had in insurance, but to get the insurance company to pay for the entire verdict.

Joe Dougherty
Common sense would say, they know you’re not buffing. You’ve got to wonder why they take it that far. You’ve got to go through the process and let it play itself out to an extent. But what do you think the reasoning is that they wait until you’re going up to courtrooms? That maybe they want to have their money make as much interest as possible before they have to pay it out?

Andrew Duffy
Insurance companies are professional litigators. They assess the global arena. And through their studies, they have learned that most attorneys will cave. Most attorneys won’t make it to verdict.

Joe Dougherty
But it’s proven that you are going to trial. That’s why I asked.

Andrew Duffy
Absolutely. And so that’s what I think really differentiates us and other firms that we respect because we will take it the distance and caving is not in our vocabulary.

Joe Dougherty
You mentioned a contingency fee agreement. Let’s touch on it before we actually get into the cases. I like to always point it out because we’re sitting right up on the 52nd floor of the Liberty One, which is a historic building here in Philadelphia. You would think that coming in here, if you had to retain an attorney from Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky, if you had to pay a retainer, it would be just unaffordable. Also, by the way, the thought of it is something people, some don’t even take a chance at, but the contingency fee makes that not a requirement and it levels the playing field for somebody who could never afford to do it themselves.

Andrew Duffy
When I grew up, my mother was a nurse. My father was a teacher. If I got injured and we were required to pay an attorney by the hour and send in a retainer, well, guess what? Little Drew Duffy who was injured isn’t getting a lawyer. So the contingent fee, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania came up with over a hundred years ago and it really opens the courthouse doors to everybody. It gives injured parties the ability to retain the lawyer of their choice. So they get to research the lawyer, look at their credentials, look at their track record, look at all their results and say, okay, I want to go with that firm. And then across our industry, you can sign us up to be your attorneys through a contingent fee.

And what a contingent fee is, is that there is absolutely no financial risk to the clients. They don’t put money up front. They don’t give us a retainer. There’s no out of pocket funds whatsoever. And at the end of the case, there is a percentage split that if, and only if there’s a recovery, we get a certain percentage for our fee and the clients get a certain percentage, which is much higher.

Joe Dougherty
How many people don’t know that? In other words, a lot of people still do not know it?

Andrew Duffy
So many people. And I have very, very sophisticated clients and that’s their first question. They come in, they see our offices, they’ve read our bios, they’re very impressed and they’re like, listen, you’re gonna be $1,000, $1,200 an hour, I can’t afford that. How do we work this out? And then thankfully we have the contingent fee to be able to offer to them. And that is a win-win for everybody. It is the perfect business relationship with our clients because the more money we get them, the more money we get. The harder we work and the more we win, the more we do well as a business. So the contingent fee is good for all the right reasons.

Joe Dougherty
When did you start here at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky?

Andrew Duffy
Twenty years ago this June.

Joe Dougherty
And your pathway. Talk about it, because it amazes me. And if you could describe, to a client or another colleague who works at another firm, what the common denominator is of the attorneys that work here. And the process. You started here 20 years ago. When you came here, what were your expectations? Number one, and number two, what are the qualities a Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky attorney has that really sets you apart. You didn’t get here because you’re not overly successful, but that is a lot of hard work. Talk about the qualities that are required in order to be here and be successful.

Andrew Duffy
Tenacity, appropriate aggression, a work ethic that is just sometimes a little insane. Competitiveness.

I grew up in South Jersey in a town called Gloucester Township and I played every sport growing up and I was competitive as the next guy. And I was a guy that grew up with a wonderful family, but I didn’t know any lawyers. I didn’t grow up in that neighborhood. I just didn’t know any lawyers. And so, you know, one of the fancy towns in South Jersey, I once visited a friend of mine and his father was a lawyer and I learned all about being a lawyer. And from that meeting that night, I wanted to be a lawyer. And the best part about being a trial lawyer, a person that goes into the courtroom and gets to argue for people when they had the darkest day of their life, is that not only are you doing a great thing for this family, but it also, it keeps the competitive juices flowing. It makes you really, not only want to do it for the client, which is by far the most important thing.

But I run a team at Saltz Mongeluzzi. We all pull for each other, we’re all there for each other. If one of us has a trial, we all go and watch. If any of us has something that’s due quickly or jammed up, we all look after each other and help each other. And that’s what I grew up with. I grew up with teammates and people. When you asked about young attorneys, I want teammates. I don’t want the guy that went to Harvard and gets up in front of a jury and asks questions like, did you ever have on the occasion a chance to exit your vehicle? No, I want the guy that says, did you ever get out of your car?

Joe Dougherty
Right. The type of somebody that the jury can relate to. I asked Bob Mongeluzzi the same question. I asked him, what keeps you going? Where do you get this passion for it? And the first thing he said was, well, I played sports, it’s my competitive nature. It always leads me into a conversation because you just mentioned sports and the law, and your team. And I know here at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky you have teams.There are teams within the firm and different specialties. So being a team player. Being competitive, but also performing. There’s a ton of different types of attorneys that aren’t trial attorneys.

If you think about it too much, you might get nervous, but I always say, there’s two ways to look at it. You can get out there and be afraid to make a mistake or you can get out there and say, okay, it’s go time and look at me. I can do this. But performing in athletics, what’s the parallel to when you get out there, and you’re representing a client, who by the way, entire life is depending upon you with the performance in front of the jury, in front of the judge. You mentioned that Harvard guy, I know you’re not picking on Harvard and you’re not talking about, just stereotypically, but you want somebody that not only represents the client really well, but connects with that jury, and can connect with that judge on behalf of the client.

Talk about the ability to perform in those situations and to thrive under pressure in front of everybody in that courtroom, to get your point across and have them like you at the same time.

Andrew Duffy
I never understood the lawyers that want to do what we do, but not want to go to the courtroom. To me, that’s like being in sports, practicing, practicing, practicing, and not getting to play the game. You want to be in the game. And to be in the game at the highest levels requires sacrifice. And I enjoy doing this more than sports. And the sports analogy is a little strange because, in sports, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re doing it for your teammates. And what we get to do, we get to do this for our family. We get to do this for clients who need our help more than anybody in the world. And the hours of preparation, hundreds of hours of preparing what we deem to be the perfect opening statement, which some trial experts say is the most important part in jury decision making.

It’s all worth it because it’s either going to achieve a substantial settlement in trial or it’s going to  yield a substantial verdict.

Joe Dougherty
Let’s segue on to something you mentioned earlier. We talked about justice at the beginning of the show. On behalf of your client. You put it so well.

Sports is exactly that – sports. In other words, you might miss the winning field goal or lose the game, but no one’s dying. Nobody’s going to be maimed or crippled for the rest of their life and alone when they’re 60 years old and they’re only 30 now. If you don’t win, that person’s life is going to drastically change. So there’s obviously a lot more pressure.

As well as that justice, change comes in the courtroom, not just for that individual, but for other individuals. Let’s talk about some of the named cases. The impacting cases, game changing cases, where you have achieved justice on behalf of the client. They may have been catastrophic types, but also where you can lay your head on a pillow at night and say we got justice for the client, and it’s bittersweet because they may never walk again, or they may never see their loved one, but you can lay your head on the pillow and say, but also it’s never going to happen to anybody else again. Let’s talk about some of those impactful cases. Some, that when we talk about this firm, that people may have heard of and seen on the front pages for a long long time.

You mentioned the duck boat case. Talk about that case because people lost their lives in that situation. I cannot imagine what you went through when those people came in, their family, what was left of their family. There were three members of a family at least at one point passed right or four?

Andrew Duffy
Nine. Nine of 11 on a family vacation. So how we got involved in the duck boat is horrifically, we had our own duck boat disaster in Philadelphia.

Hungarian high school students competed for an academic prize. He and she who won that academic prize got to get a trip to New York and Philadelphia. So they went up to New York, they came down to Philadelphia. It was one of the hottest days in Philadelphia history, 106 degrees that day. A duck boat goes out with the Hungarian student crew on board. A mechanic had left the radiator cap off. They go out in the Delaware River, it overheats, stalls, and they have to anchor, and they anchor in the middle of a shipping lane. Meanwhile, down the river, there is a large barge being pulled by a tugboat, and the tugboat operator becomes distracted because his son was having an operation in the doctor’s office and something went wrong. So he put it on cruise control, turned off the radio, and literally proceeded down the river. Blind and deaf basically. And people around the Philadelphia area remember that footage, that horrific footage of that duck boat getting run over by a 392 foot sludge barge.

So we handle that case and, two wonderful kids lost their lives. So there’s never a successful great result, but we were able to bring that case to a, a very, very just conclusion. And then, just as the Philadelphia duck boat companies were kicked out of Philadelphia, because they were just a disaster, these duck boats. They’re not meant to float. They were built in the 1940s to go to the storm the beaches of Normandy and be abandoned, not go on water. And so lo and behold, we get a call one day after we see on the news that 17 people in Branson, Missouri lost their lives in a duck boat sinking.

And this is the case that has affected me the most in my career. Because I had the honor of representing the family from Indianapolis, who went on a family vacation to Branson with 11 people who were so excited about going together. Nine of them died. Nine. That included the strongest young lady that I’ve ever met in my life who was the mother of three children and a wonderful wife to a wonderful husband.

She went on that duck boat with a husband and three children. She left that duck boat as the sole survivor in her family. She lost her husband and her three children. And just talking to her, getting to know her, seeing how she dealt with an unspeakable and unimaginable amount of grief and loss, really changed me as a person because she’s just the strongest person I’ve ever met. And we spent a lot of time in Missouri litigating that case, again, to a, what I like to think a very just result. We’re in an arena where there is no real justice with that amount of loss.

Joe Dougherty
Did it go to trial? I would have been absolutely stunned if it had.

Andrew Duffy
It did not go to trial. It settled before trial. Listen, everybody asked me about the money. The money wasn’t important. There’s no amount of money in this world, Joe, that can compensate for that loss, period. End of story.

But it’s just meeting people like that. I am so happy. She just turned 40. This is six years after the case and we just got an invite in the mail to go to her birthday party out in Indiana. So it’s that relationship that I develop with our clients that really keeps me going. You had my son on the last show and he was very honest. He said, listen, when dad’s not home, when he was on trial, I get it. I get it. That he’s working so hard for somebody that needs him more than I need him right now. And that was really moving for me that my son acknowledged and realized that.

Joe Dougherty
Well, it was an impactful moment for me too. Just so our listeners know, this is the Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky show. We have Drew Duffy, a partner here at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. And we’re talking about a wide array of what you can expect. Obviously, catastrophic injury. We’ve talked about the firm represented, at the highest level, at the most extreme situations imaginable, individuals who have suffered, or family members who have suffered from catastrophic injuries, and dealing with that from the day one when they walk in to going through the entire process.

And we’re talking about the duck boat issue in Missouri. I think I had maybe just started doing the legal radio back then and didn’t understand the connection of how a Missouri duck boat tragedy would hire the same firm here in Philly, right? But then it didn’t take me two seconds. Once I learned you’re successful in one spot, the attorneys around the country know about it. No matter how good of an attorney, they’ll come to you because they know that you’ve done a great job. And so it obviously made sense.

But thinking about what you just said, and having that relationship with somebody who lost her entire family in that process and calls you to invite you to her birthday party. You said that was your most difficult moment. Not surprising. What are your conversations like with her? Is there a relationship after you jumped in the trenches with her and held her hand during the most difficult experience in her life?

Andrew Duffy
On the anniversary I make sure I send her a text. Hey, how are you doing? I’m thinking about you. She may get back to me immediately. She may get back to me in three days. It doesn’t matter. I just want to let her know that I’m thinking about her. But that’s what we do.

Joe Dougherty
Now the change though, in other words, are they still running these duck boats? Are there new safety regulations for the ones that are being run? How do we, you know, that catastrophic insane incident, both of them that you’ve successfully brought to fruition. What, in that justice, because the part of this conversation is making sure it doesn’t happen to somebody else, what part of that situation helps make sure that it doesn’t happen to future people?

Andrew Duffy
That’s what I’m most proud of, Joe, because the only thing that we can really do for our clients in the civil justice system is to get them substantial money compensation.

However, we’ve raised the bar, and I’m very proud of this, is that in certain cases, in the right cases, we can demand not only money, we can demand non-monetary terms. And here’s what we’ve done. And what we did in Duck Boat is literally the CEO of the company sat down with the family, looked them across the table, said this was all our fault, I’m sorry. And as little as that is, that means a hell of a lot to that family. So we demanded that.

We also went and we petitioned the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard was very lax in enforcing these rules and these horrific semi-boats. And there were regulations out there that the Coast Guard just wasn’t enforcing. We went after the Coast Guard. Now they’ve changed everything and are starting to enforce it. We then petitioned Congress through the various politicians. Proudly, there was a duck boat bill, a safety bill passed.

And so with all that, there is a new duck boat out there in Branson, Missouri, but it is a duck boat that is substantially, substantially safer than the ones that we call death traps. And so they are virtually unsinkable in the new ones.

So people can still make a decision. Would I go on a duck boat? No dice. But people can still make a decision on what type of duck boat they can go on. And I recommend never go on the ones that are up in Boston that are anywhere else there. But there are some duck boats that are safe because they’re built like real boats and they don’t capsize and they don’t sink in 37 seconds.

Joe Dougherty
So other catastrophic cases that would be renowned? You talked about the Tropicana collapse. We’ve talked about that number of times. The Salvation Army collapse. I’ll never forget the day that happened. Another case that you were able to seek justice, but one that really shook the city in a sense. Where was L&I? The reverberations of that tragedy still exist today. Talk about that particular case and how you brought a portion of that to justice.

Andrew Duffy
That case was just disgusting. That’s the best word for it because you had, on Market Street, 22nd and Market, you have this major demolition project going on. And the owners, those who had to make the crucial decisions on safety, those who had to make the crucial decisions on access to property, the Salvation Army next door. Those people had all the ability to make the right safety decisions, didn’t. And with the collapse, seven wonderful souls were lost. It did shake the city. People went to jail.

One of the good things that has come out of it is the City Council has rewritten the demolition rules in Philadelphia, has required engineering services, has required everything that basically OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires. And I truly believe that demolition sites are now safer in Philadelphia, but something should never get safer because seven people lost their lives. But unfortunately it’s how our society seems to improve things, thought angers me.

Joe Dougherty
This is a good conversation about where this firm has impacted, not only its clients, but the way we do things. Change happened, but unfortunately, it often happens that way. I was in the nightclub business for 15 years. We didn’t have a security guard by that back door, nobody goes by it. I’m being a little hypothetical, but I’m saying until somebody comes in there, sneaks in that door because a barback goes out there to empty something, and somebody comes in, and something happens. Now all of a sudden you’re sitting there with your partners and going, see fellas. We all make mistakes in life but often the buck drives everything.

Bob Mongeluzzi talked about it and I was staggered. We talked about the baseball helmet case.

I had the pleasure to finally do Bob’s interview. I had the pleasure of doing that show, but had never done a show with Bob here at the firm because of his schedule. I said to my wife, I don’t think he likes me. Finally, one day he comes in and says my schedule cleared up. And I’ll tell you, it was so amazing. I was so grateful.

Because I’ll tell you why. So many people have said to me how amazing he is. People go to watch him in trial and do these things. It was incredible. But he mentioned about a young person getting hit in the head while they were batting in a baseball cage with a helmet that only could take a 70 mile an hour hit. And that individual got badly injured. It wasn’t like the focal point of the case. He was giving me an example of the show. And then he talked about how we were able to up the standards. And the helmets are much safer. I mean the difference that makes at every little league game. Every time somebody gets up the bat, you must be sitting there thinking, he’s a little safer because of us. And I thought it was incredible. I think that is part of justice.

Change happens in the courtroom or right before you go to the courtroom. Any other particular cases that impact you and give you a specific amount of pride where you know that you move the needle, not only for your client, but for the general public. People that are walking out there right now and are safer because of what you and your team have done in the courtroom. Any cases that you can think of that give you a specific amount of pride?

Andrew Duffy
One of the proudest conversations I’ve ever had, Joe, was when my parents moved. So they’re in the new house and I get to meet their new neighbors.

And also I look at the neighbor coming out the door, she looks at me and lo and behold, she was the corporate safety director of one of the major general contractors here in the city that handled the largest construction sites. And we were talking and she said, I want to thank you. And I was a little taken back because we’re sort of, I was sort of walking on eggshells because I’ve taken her deposition several times – you didn’t do this and you didn’t do that and you didn’t do this and you failed this and you violated OSHA. And so I’ve gone after her many times. And so she looks at me and she goes, I want to thank you. I said, why thank me? She goes, you and your firm made me a better safety director. You made construction sites safer because you demanded more of me and us from a safety perspective.

And that felt great because I have a real soft spot for the construction industry.

Joe Dougherty
We only have a couple of minutes left. You’re world renowned in so many different areas, but in construction specifically.  My union, the ironworkers and my father, specifically only use Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. Because as you know, ironworkers, for the most part, get catastrophically injured. So you guys have specialized amongst all the other areas in construction cases, catastrophic construction cases from the most epic type. Talk about that. We only have a couple of minutes, but I really believe, like the conversation you’re having now, that there are construction sites around. Everyone that we look at has your thumbprint on it, even more so where there’s no injuries because of cases that you’ve tried in the past that help create safety measures that prevent these injuries now and these issues in these shops. Just touch on it if you would.

Andrew Duffy
We consider it one of our major obligations, especially throughout the city of Philadelphia, to make sure that the construction sites are the safest place for people to go to work. When men and women go from either union halls or from their homes, they deserve the safest place to work. You know going into these sites, the people running the site know that every single worker will be exposed to these extreme hazards and they are identifiable, they are recognizable, they are foreseeable. You take the necessary safety precautions to protect everybody so they go home safely. And we will fight tooth and nail and rip apart anybody that doesn’t take that seriously.

Joe Dougherty
It would take hours to talk about the individuals that you’ve represented, who’ve lost their lives, whose standards you’ve created so it doesn’t happen. I can tell you, when I started on some of these buildings you’re looking at right around us, in 1982, when I was a kid, you didn’t have a static line up there and you weren’t tying up. You were only tying off when you got to the point.  So the safety standards that have been brought on because Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky represented somebody who did not benefit from those safety standards. We’ve talked about a number of those cases. Too numerous to mention right now. By the way, the safety of people who work in the safety industry and the construction industry, it’s a money driven business. So the people up top are pushing, pushing, pushing. You’re giving us, and them, a leg to stand on when we’re talking to our boss.

Drew, we’ve come to the conclusion of this. There’s so many stories still left on the table that we’ll catch next time.

But I want to thank you, of course, for what you do on a daily basis. Because the contingency fee agreement is one of my favorite conversations for people out there, like me, regular people who could never afford attorneys to get represented. When you’re working on the weekend, and this case is three years old, and that client hasn’t paid a dime because they could never afford to. They’re getting representation because you provide that in a contingency fee agreement provided.

I want to thank you, Andrew Duffy, for being on the program. For everything you do, for people out there every day that get justice in the courtroom. The team here at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky and everything that you do.

Andrew Duffy
I just want to say to everybody out there, especially those working in high-risk jobs, stay safe.

Joe Dougherty
I want to thank everybody for tuning in to the Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Show show on behalf of Andrew Duffy, partner here at Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. I’m Joe Dougherty. Thanks for listening, everybody.