Patrick Fitzgerald

Patrick J. Fitzgerald is a partner at Kline & Specter who has worked on several of the firm's most significant cases. He was co-counsel with Tom Kline representing passengers injured and families of deceased in the Amtrak train 188 derailment in Philadelphia, playing a key role in establishing a $265 million settlement program as part of multidistrict litigation, believed to be the largest railway settlement in history. In his first trial with the firm in 2015, Fitzgerald was co-counsel with Shanin Specter in a highly publicized case resulting in verdicts totaling $46.5 million against a security company for families of two women fatally shot by a disgruntled employee at a Kraft Foods plant in Northeast Philadelphia. A first jury awarded $8 million in compensatory damages; after deadlock on punitive damages, a second jury levied $38.5 million in punitive damages. Fitzgerald was co-counsel in litigation resulting in a nearly $10.6 million settlement for a truck driver whose legs were crushed and amputated after a 5,000-pound steel pipe rolled off a trailer bed during improper unloading at the Dura-Bond Coating Inc. facility in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, settled in 2019 during discovery. In 2019, Fitzgerald was co-counsel in a trial resulting in a $9.2 million verdict for an industrial sanitation worker whose leg was amputated in a screw conveyor at a meat processing factory after the device suddenly activated. Jose Natal of Reading worked at Devault Foods, which provided poor supervision and failed to supply locks for lockout tagout as he power-washed the conveyor, manufactured by Chemetron/Infoswitch, which had no interlock switch to prevent activation during cleaning. In May 2018, Fitzgerald worked with Shanin Specter to achieve a $30 million settlement with AT&T and others for a worker who suffered severe and permanent injuries falling nearly 50 feet from a cell tower in Allentown, Pennsylvania, when a ladder rung to which he was tethered dislodged. In June 2021, Fitzgerald was co-counsel in five lawsuits resulting in collective settlements of $8.15 million for victims of the 2016 crash of a New Jersey Transit train in Hoboken, New Jersey. More than 100 passengers were injured; a 34-year-old woman, Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, whose family Kline & Specter represented, was killed by falling debris at the station platform. In September 2024, Fitzgerald won a $7.1 million verdict in Erie County on behalf of a young woman who became legally blind after a radiologist misread her CT scan. Also in 2024, Fitzgerald achieved an $8.1 million settlement in a motor vehicle accident claim. Fitzgerald's accomplishments earned him recognition by Pennsylvania Super Lawyers for 10 consecutive years (2017-2026) as a Rising Star, placing him among the top 2.5 percent of attorneys in the state who are 40 or younger or practicing 10 years or less. He was featured in the 2017 edition of Billy Penn as among "the most dynamic people under 40 shaping Philadelphia" in their third annual "Who's Next" series highlighting younger attorneys deemed among the city's best legal minds and predicted to become "next great stars." Prior to joining Kline & Specter, Fitzgerald was an associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, one of the nation's top law firms, where he represented corporate clients in high stakes cases, focusing his practice on white collar criminal investigations, employment disputes, and complex civil litigation. Fitzgerald graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was selected as a senior editor of the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law. While in law school, Fitzgerald served as a student attorney at the Employment Advocacy Project, advocating on behalf of indigent clients for unemployment benefits, and at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. He also spent a summer as a law clerk at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in the Office of General Counsel. Fitzgerald earned his undergraduate degree from Davidson College, where he was elected captain and was a four-year starter on the football team. In addition to earning all-conference honors at cornerback, he was named a I-AA Mid-Major All-American and a regional ESPN Academic All-American. He hails from Pittsburgh.