James Waldenberger

Jim Waldenberger, a partner at Kline & Specter, is an experienced litigator with over twenty-five years of hands-on experience in personal injury cases resulting in an impressive record of legal victories. Specializing in challenging cases and employing creative litigation approaches, he has obtained seven and eight-figure verdicts and settlements across medical malpractice, product liability, premises liability, auto accidents, workplace injury, and child sexual abuse.

His trial successes include a $5.5 million jury award in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court for a mentally disabled man rendered quadriplegic when the commercial van in which he was riding struck a utility pole. He won a $3 million verdict for a woman who suffered nerve damage from a missed colon cancer diagnosis with a 22-month treatment delay resulting in chemotherapy-induced nerve damage and permanent muscle and joint pain. Jim obtained a $1.4 million verdict for a Philadelphia man who died after doctors missed bone cancer in an X-ray of his right knee, allowing cancer to spread. He also won an $800,000 verdict for a Philadelphia woman injured in a nursing home fall that eventually resulted in leg amputation.

In September 2020, Waldenberger won one of the first pandemic-era verdicts in Pennsylvania with a $2.3 million jury award for a man who lost his big toe and part of his foot when his ride-on lawnmower rolled over on a steep hill. He wrote an article about managing COVID during trial for The Legal Intelligencer.

In 2024, Jim reached a $32 million settlement with Hahnemann University Hospital for the family of a child born severely brain damaged after doctors delayed performing a cesarean section. The boy, now nine years old, is quadriplegic, suffers severe communication impairment, and requires tube feeding. This result was obtained shortly after he represented a seven-year-old child and obtained a $30 million settlement and safety improvements in an auto accident case involving a commercial vehicle in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, causing severe brain injury.

Also in 2024, he achieved settlements of $8.1 million and $8.5 million in motor vehicle accident fatality cases. He obtained a $7.5 million settlement in a medical malpractice matter for a client who suffered severe brain injury from delayed diagnosis and treatment of bacterial meningitis and a $2.6 million settlement for the family of a woman who died following a fall into industrial equipment.

In 2023, Jim obtained a $6.5 million settlement with Piazza Nissan of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, for the family of an 89-year-old woman struck and killed as she walked along the sidewalk by a company driver exiting the dealership. That same year, he reached a $3.5 million settlement for a woman who suffered brain injury from a car accident caused by improper parking lot design and a $4 million settlement for the family of a young woman whose suicide was not prevented while hospitalized at a psychiatric facility.

Jim has obtained substantial recoveries including $5.75 million for a man who suffered catastrophic brain injuries when his car was struck by a 36-ton dump truck in Delaware County, Pennsylvania; a $5.5 million arbitration award in Philadelphia for a man who sustained eye muscle damage during sinus surgery resulting in permanent double vision; $5.35 million against industrial factory designers and builders whose improper platform and equipment layout created a blind corner causing a worker to be struck by a forklift requiring leg amputation at the knee; $4.6 million for the family of a man killed in a multiple tractor-trailer pileup during a snowstorm; and $4.2 million for an infant who suffered brain damage when a truck collided with the car driven by her mother at an intersection with inadequate traffic control.

Additional notable recoveries include $4 million for a worker injured at an industrial site after being thrown into his truck by a sudden natural gas blast caused by another worker; $3.6 million for an infant and his parents following delayed birth delivery resulting in brain damage; $3.2 million for the family of a man killed in a motorcycle accident; $3 million for the estate of a cement truck driver killed after the vehicle struck a ditch, its 40,000-pound mixer dislodging, rolling forward and crushing the cab, involving negligence and product liability claims settled in Northampton County; $2.6 million for a Paulsboro, New Jersey garbage collector who suffered severe face and neck injuries when burned by sulfuric acid after a collection at a plumbing supply store; $2.3 million in medical malpractice for a man who suffered nerve damage during spinal cord surgery; $2.2 million in medical malpractice for a man who suffered brain injury because his stroke was not timely diagnosed and treated; $2 million in medical malpractice for a man with congenital heart condition whose palpitation complaints were ignored by cardiologists; $2 million against the Philadelphia Department of Human Services for improper placement of a five-year-old girl in a home where DHS failed to perform adequate background checks and the girl was raped by another child at the home; $2 million for the family of a 17-year-old who died after an emergency room visit where a heart infection was not diagnosed and timely treated; $2 million for a 17-year-old worker killed when a tire he was helping to inflate exploded at a Pennsylvania Turnpike rest area; $1.7 million involving the death of a factory worker who fell into an industrial tank because of inadequate safety measures; $1.5 million in premises liability for a woman who suffered cognitive impairment following a trip and fall incident; $1.4 million involving the death of a man whose doctors failed to diagnose a dissecting aorta, with settlement achieved while a jury deliberated at trial; and $1 million despite a $500,000 government liability cap from the City of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, for the family of a man who died after a police car smashed into his vehicle, with the city also agreeing to changes in police pursuit procedures and the offending officer being fired.

Jim currently serves as adjunct professor at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law at Drexel University, teaching Introduction to Trial Advocacy to law students. Due to his extensive trial experience and his essential role at the firm helping younger colleagues with cases and work/personal life management, he was selected as a finalist in The Legal Intelligencer's award for Mentor of the Year in 2024.

Jim attended Villanova University as an undergraduate, earning an English degree with honors, and attended Villanova for law school, where he was a member of the National Moot Court Team. He is a Fellow of Temple University's Academy of Trial Advocacy and is a member of the bar in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern, Middle, and Western Districts of Pennsylvania.