Michael A. Salvati

A litigator and legal scholar, Michael provides streamlined solutions to his casualty clients’ most complex litigation challenges. With a focus on product liability, premises liability, automobile and other personal injury claims, he provides counsel to manufacturers of consumer goods, regional and national retail chains, manufacturing facilities, restaurants/bars, commercial landowners, pharmacies and more. Michael has experience in all aspects of defense litigation, from initial claim investigation through discovery and trial. Michael has also assisted in the defense of class actions involving various subject matters, ranging from alleged product failures to data breach claims.

Michael prioritizes efficiency, achieving favorable outcomes, and ensuring the best possible results for his clients. By dissecting the key issues in litigation, he aims to avoid unnecessary complexities and legal disputes. He approaches every client matter strategically, by first assessing the case; identifying critical legal arguments; and creating a well-informed legal strategy.

An avid reader and life-long student, he keeps abreast of legal topics pertinent to his clients, so he can better understand the current legal landscape and how it may impact their cases. A prolific writer, he has published substantive articles in The Pennsylvania Lawyer, The Legal Intelligencer and Law360.

Michael’s scholarship and devotion to the law has not gone unnoticed. In 2023, he was selected to serve a five-year term on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania’s Civil Jury Instruction Subcommittee, which drafts jury instructions used by trial judges throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Admitted to practice in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Michael is a member of the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and New Jersey State Bar Associations. He is additionally a member of the Defense Research Institute where he has served as an editor for its Product Liability Defenses, a State-by-State Compendium.

Prior to joining the firm, Michael served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Timothy G. Farrell of the Superior Court of New Jersey. In that capacity, Michael managed the judge's dockets, drafted opinions and orders, and served as a mediator in Small Claims and Special Civil Part cases.

Michael earned his juris doctor at Villanova Law School, where he graduated in the top 10% of his class, was a member of the Order of the Coif, and served as an Associate Editor of the Villanova Law Review. He earned his bachelor's degree in history from Villanova University, where he graduated first in his class with a 4.0 GPA.

Michael resides in South Jersey with his wife and twin boys.

Honors & Awards

•Pennsylvania Super Lawyers Rising Star (2024-2025)

Classes/Seminars Taught

•The Misuse Defense: Strategic Approaches to Defending Product Liability Claims for Insurers, A.M. Best Podcast, April 1, 2026
•Strategies to Mitigate Risk and Avoid Litigation, Marshall Dennehey Client Presentation, May 14, 2025
•Panel Member, Nuts and Bolts of Litigation Practice Under the Fair Share Act, Pennsylvania Bar Institute, April 2016.
•Litigation Pointers for Defending the Supermarket Slip and Fall Case, Liberty Mutual Insurance, February 2015

Published Works

•'Pa. Supreme Court Must Defend Established Venue Standard,' Law360, February 17, 2023
•'A Two-Pronged Test Becomes One - Why the Superior Court's Venue Decision in Hangey Departs From Decades of Prior Precedent,' The Pennsylvania Lawyer, January/February 2023
•'After 'Tincher,' Evidence of Industry Standards Should be Admissible in PI Litigation,' The Legal Intelligencer, Personal Injury Supplement, November 5, 2021
•“There’s No Turning Back Now: Product Liability Jury Instructions in the Wake of Tincher v. Omega Flex,” Defense Digest, Vol. 24, No. 2, June 2018
•'There’s No Place Like “Home”: Challenging General Jurisdiction When an LLC Is a Citizen of the Forum State, ' Defense Digest, Vol. 23, No. 2, June 2017
•“Pennsylvania’s Fair Share Act: Practical Pointers for Litigators,” Defense Digest, Vol. 20, No. 2, June 2014, co-author

Media Commentary

•''A Titanic Decision': Pa. Supreme Court's Ruling Makes Venue Challenges Harder,' The Legal Intelligencer, November 29, 2023

Results

Received Precedential Decision from PA Superior Court in Venue Transfer Case

We secured a unanimous, precedential decision upholding a venue transfer from Philadelphia to Butler County under forum non conveniens, setting a new standard for defendants after a series of appellate reversals.

Car dealership dismissed from lawsuit for lack of personal jurisdiction.

We obtained dismissal of our client, a car dealership, from a suit pending in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, on the basis of a lack of personal jurisdiction. The plaintiff, who had addresses in Pennsylvania and Florida, had purchased a used Range Rover that allegedly experienced ongoing maintenance issues. The plaintiff sought repairs from various car dealerships, including our client. When the repairs were unsuccessful, she brought claims for breach of warranty, breach of contract and unfair trade practices against each of them. Our client had serviced the vehicle once, in Florida, and had no meaningful connections with Pennsylvania. The court was not impressed with the plaintiff’s arguments regarding our client’s website (accessible everywhere, including Pennsylvania) and unspecified, unrelated sales and shipments to Pennsylvania. The court dismissed our client, alone among the defendants, for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Thought Leadership

Case Law Alerts

Superior Court Clarifies Crashworthiness Doctrine and Provides Key Jury-Instruction Guidance

April 1, 2026

In the much-publicized Amagasu case, a jury returned a verdict of nearly a billion dollars to a plaintiff who was paralyzed in a rollover car accident. On appeal, the Superior Court vacated the award and remanded for a new trial stating that the trial court did not properly charge the jury on crashworthiness principles.Crashworthiness is a subset of products liability cases in which it is alleged that a vehicle possessed a defect that did not cause an accident, but did not offer sufficient protection to the vehicle’s occupant during the accident. Pennsylvania law recognizes that collisions and other accidents are part of the intended use of a motor vehicle, so manufacturers must design and manufacture a product that is “reasonably crashworthy.” For example, if a plaintiff is involved in a head-on collision and the air bags do not deploy, the lack of air bag deployment did not cause the collision, but possibly increased the severity of the plaintiff’s injuries - that failure to perform may give rise to a product defect claim.In Amagasu, the Superior Court re-affirmed the elements of a crashworthiness claim, which was first recognized in Pennsylvania in 1994, but has not frequently been analyzed since the landmark Tincher case re-defined the product liability cause of action. Amagasu explained that crashworthiness cases involved a “more rigorous” and a “heightened burden of proof” compared to ordinary products liability cases as a trade off for expanding the scope of liability to an alleged defect that did not cause the underlying accident. Specifically, in addition to proving a product defect, the plaintiff must prove that, at the time the vehicle was designed, a safer and more practical design existed. A plaintiff’s burden to prove causation is also heavier in a crashworthiness case, as he or she must distinguish between the “enhanced injury” caused by the defect, and the “non-compensable injuries” he or she would have sustained in the accident anyway. The Superior Court emphasized that these crashworthiness elements “impose a burden of proof far and above that of a typical” products liability case.Amagasu may have a greater impact than simply crashworthiness cases as the billion-dollar verdict was vacated because the trial court did not give proper jury instructions. The trial court had avoided giving instructions that were not included in the Pennsylvania Suggested Standard Civil Jury Instructions, which did not provide a specific instruction on crashworthiness.The Suggested Standard Jury Instructions are an excellent resource and guide, but they are not an exhaustive statement of every area of the law. If a legal issue is raised by the evidence, the jury must be given an appropriate instruction, even if one is not included in the SSJI.

Case Law Alerts

Third Circuit Court of Appeals Holds a Product Liability Plaintiff Does Not Need an Expert to Survive Summary Judgment in Certain Cases

October 1, 2025

Product liability suits often involve complex machinery or detailed questions of product design and engineering. Thus, when defendants seek to preclude a plaintiff’s experts from testifying, they often try to kill two birds with one stone. Without experts to explain nuanced questions of defect and causation, the defense will argue that the plaintiff’s claims must fail as a matter of law. In a recent decision, the Third Circuit reversed a trial court that had reached such a conclusion. In Slatowski, the plaintiff shot himself in the leg and blamed his firearm for being too easy to fire. Although the plaintiff had two experts to explain the firearm’s internal workings and the specifics of several recommended alternative designs, the trial court excluded those experts’ causation opinions as speculative. Just because the plaintiff’s pistol could have been accidentally fired, there was no reliable evidence that it did so on this particular occasion. Without an expert to discuss the issue of causation, the District Court granted summary judgment for the defendant.The Third Circuit reversed, explaining that expert testimony is only needed when, considering all the admissible evidence, the jury cannot reach a decision without speculating. As examples, the court noted that where a theory of harm is technical or abstract, expert opinion might be required-as when a mold infestation may be caused by a leaky toilet or by a fungus. Alternatively, in a product liability case, if something has gone very wrong with a product but the plaintiff is not sure what-as when a van suddenly catches fire-an expert may be needed to explain why. But even when the subject matter of a case is complex, the Third Circuit concluded that an expert is not needed when “lay testimony can tell the story of causation.” The fact that the plaintiff had expert testimony on the issue of defect-how the pistol functioned internally and how alternative designs would have changed things-made the question of causation relatively simple. Given the anticipated testimony regarding how the pistol’s trigger worked, did the jury believe the plaintiff’s testimony that some debris could have gotten in his holster and activated the trigger? That, the Third Circuit held, was a simple enough question for a jury to decide without expert assistance.Defense practitioners who challenge a plaintiff’s experts should be aware of this decision and bolster the summary judgment portion of their motions accordingly. Case Law Alerts, 4th Quarter, October 2025 is prepared by Marshall Dennehey to provide information on recent developments of interest to our readers. This publication is not intended to provide legal advice for a specific situation or to create an attorney-client relationship. Copyright 2025 Marshall Dennehey, all rights reserved. This article may not be reprinted without the express written permission of our firm.

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