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 avid J. Caputo, a partner at Kline & Specter, has played a significant role in some of the firm’s most notable victories. His practice includes the full range of complex personal injury litigation handled by the firm.
In November 2006, Caputo, as lead trial counsel, won a $3 million jury verdict for a 50-year-old ironworker injured in a fall at a construction site. Pre-trial settlements pushed the total potential recovery in the case to $4 million. (See McCormick 1 2)
Other notable cases:
● Caputo was co-counsel with Tom Kline in representing the estate of one of three women killed in the collapse of Pier 34 in May 2000. The litigation resulted in a $29.6 million settlement announced in January 2004. (See Pier 34)
● Two months later, Caputo was co-counsel with Shanin Specter on the retrial of White v. Ford, which resulted in a $52 million verdict by a federal jury in Reno, Nev.. The case involved the death of a three-year old child as a result of a defective parking brake in a Ford F-Series truck.
●Caputo was co-counsel with both Kline and Specter in representing prominent Philadelphia attorney Richard Sprague in his highly publicized defamation case against sports talk radio host Howard Eskin. The case settled in September 2004, resulting in an on-air apology from Eskin, a 30-day suspension of Eskin by 610-WIP, and “substantial compensation” for Sprague.
●Caputo also was co-counsel with Kline on the litigation arising from a June 2001 explosion and fire at the Village Green Apartments in Montgomery County, which produced a $40.5 million settlement in September 2004 on behalf of six people who died and six who were injured.
As both lead and co-counsel, Caputo has helped win a number of other seven-figure recoveries on behalf of the firm’s clients, including a $5 million settlement of a Federal Tort Claims Act case (Cordero), the $3.375 million settlement in the Hernandez case, and other confidential settlements in product liability, medical malpractice and motor vehicle accident cases.
In 2006, Caputo was co-counsel with Specter for the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association as amicus curiae in cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Caputo's work for PaTLA was primarily in the area of federal pre-emption, fighting attempts by drug manufacturers and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to eliminate the rights of people injured by dangerous drugs to be compensated through the civil justice system.
Caputo was selected in both 2005 and 2006 from among thousands of attorneys for inclusion in Pennsylvania Super Lawyers — Rising Stars, a publication that selected the top 2.5 percent of attorneys in the state who are 40 or younger.
Caputo earned his B.A. from Duke University, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, in 1992, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, cum laude, in 1996. From 1996 to 1997, he was a law clerk for Judge J. Curtis Joyner of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. From 1997 until 2002, Caputo was an associate at Dechert LLP, where his practice included a broad range of civil and criminal litigation. Caputo earned an LL.M. in Trial Advocacy, with honors, from Temple University Beasley School of Law in 2005.
Caputo is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the federal courts in both states, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Ninth Circuit. He is a member of the Pennsylvania Association for Justice and the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association and the American Association for Justice.
To contact David Caputo, email him at
David.Caputo@KlineSpecter.com
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