Philadelphia Museum of Art withholds ex-CFO's severance

The Philadelphia Museum of Art accused former chief financial officer Valarie McDuffie of wiping her museum-issued phone on her last day after being told twice to preserve records related to ousted director Sasha Suda's lawsuit.

The museum refused to pay McDuffie a $144,691.60 severance. In its answer to her lawsuit, it said it withheld the money because McDuffie did not fulfill her severance obligations, including cooperating with the museum and returning property.

McDuffie first sued in May in Philadelphia's Court of Common Pleas. She claims museum director and chief executive Daniel H. Weiss and board chair Ellen Caplan withheld her pay "for reasons of spite and retaliation" and used her alleged failure to "cooperate" with an internal investigation as a pretext.

"What she refused to do — and was never required to do — was to submit to shifting, undefined, and extra-contractual demands manufactured to create her alleged breach of the terms of the severance agreement," her complaint said.

Her complaint says Pennsylvania's Wage Payment and Collection Law "imposes personal liability on those who control the payment of wages and choose not to pay them," and that Weiss and Caplan controlled that decision. She is seeking the unpaid pay, an additional 25% under the wage law, the cost of her COBRA health insurance premiums, and her lawyers' fees.

The museum answered in July with a counterclaim. It said McDuffie logged off her work computer at about 6:31 p.m. on February 12, her last day of active employment. Around the same time, she performed a factory reset of her museum-issued phone, erasing all content and settings.

Paid subscribers can read the court documents used in this reporting.

Court Documents: McDuffie v. Philadelphia Museum of Art

Court documents obtained by Urgent Matter from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Urgent MatterAdam Schrader

She left the museum at about 6:45 p.m. that evening, the museum said. It said she erased the phone without permission from anyone authorized to give it and "without any excuse or justification."

McDuffie communicated "on a regular basis" with Suda and used the museum phone to do it, the counterclaim said. It said McDuffie also talked with Suda about Suda's raises after the museum discovered them. The museum called them "unauthorized compensation increases."

The museum's general counsel sent McDuffie a notice at about 5:33 p.m. on November 21, 2025, directing her to preserve records tied to Suda's lawsuit, the counterclaim said. The notice covered records about Suda's pay and expenses, including anything on McDuffie's mobile phones. She confirmed receiving it at about 11:25 p.m. that night.

McDuffie said she found out around January 16 that her employment would be terminated. The museum planned to offer her a severance deal. A second notice to preserve records related to Suda's lawsuit arrived the next day.

She and the museum's general counsel, Rebecca Wui, signed the agreement dated January 16 on February 5. It set March 27 as McDuffie's last day of employment and promised her a lump sum of $144,691.60 within 21 days after the deal took effect, plus her COBRA premiums through June 30.

In return, McDuffie released any legal claims against the museum and agreed to cooperate with it and its lawyers "in connection with any investigation or litigation" about matters from her time there. She also agreed to return all museum property, including mobile phones. The agreement said the museum would have no obligation to pay her until she did.

The agreement said McDuffie would be paid through March 27 regardless of whether she signed it. Her complaint says the museum also refused to pay her for administrative leave.

McDuffie's complaint puts her administrative leave pay and severance together at $189,546. The museum denied that figure in its answer.

Weiss agreed in the deal to write McDuffie a letter of reference. The museum also agreed to instruct nine people not to disparage her: Caplan, Weiss, Osagie Imasogie, Tac Justi, Ira Brind, Orlando Esposito, Kemel Dawkins, Mark Rubenstein and David Seltzer.

In its answer, the museum argued the severance never counted as earned wages under state wage law because it depended on McDuffie meeting her obligations. It also said it could deduct any losses she caused from money it might owe her.

In its counterclaim, the museum accuses McDuffie of breaking the agreement, violating the duties she owed the museum "as a trusted executive-level employee and an officer," and violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the federal anti-hacking law. It said it had to bring in lawyers and forensic experts to investigate the erasure and reconstruct the lost data.

The museum said McDuffie "exceeded her authorized access" by erasing the phone and caused more than $5,000 in damage. It said it "is unable to quantify the full extent" of its losses and is still assessing them.

The museum asked the court to order McDuffie to comply with the agreement and to make her pay its legal fees.

McDuffie asked U.S. District Judge Chad F. Kenney in August to dismiss the anti-hacking and officer-duty claims. Her lawyer, Stephen C. Goldblum, wrote that the phone allegation was denied but argued wiping the phone would not break the anti-hacking law even if it happened.

"Here, McDuffie was at all times granted access to and given full rights to the data and information on her Museum-issued cell phone," Goldblum wrote.

He cited a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits the law to people who get into files or parts of a computer off-limits to them. He also argued the officer-duty claim rested on the same conduct as the breach-of-contract claim.

Kenney denied the motion September 29, the docket shows. On August 31, he denied Caplan's request to be dropped from the wage claim. Caplan remains a personal defendant on that claim.

McDuffie dropped a separate claim on July 1 that the museum acted in bad faith in carrying out the agreement.

The museum's board fired Suda on November 4, 2025. In court documents later that month, the museum said its board had voted 12-0, with one abstention, on October 27, 2025, to remove her after "reviewing evidence" that she misappropriated funds and "lied to cover up her theft.”

The museum said Suda gave herself three raises without the board's approval and that its compensation committee first learned of them at a September 8, 2025, meeting. Suda's own lawsuit called the outside law firm's review of her pay and expenses a "sham investigation.”

Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Michael E. Erdos sent Suda's case to private arbitration on January 30.

Suda announced McDuffie's hiring in May 2023. McDuffie came from The College of New Jersey, where she had been interim vice president of finance and treasurer.

Weiss, a former Metropolitan Museum of Art president, started at the museum on December 1, 2025. On March 6, three weeks before McDuffie's separation date, the museum named Mitchell Lee Wein its executive vice president, chief financial officer and chief operating officer.

The museum moved McDuffie's lawsuit to federal court on June 3. McDuffie lives in New Jersey, and the museum, Weiss and Caplan are all Pennsylvania citizens.

The museum's lawyers wrote that a federal rule usually blocks that kind of move when a defendant is from the state where the suit was filed but only after the defendant has been properly served. They argued none had been.

On May 22, a process server handed three copies of the complaint to a shipping and receiving clerk at the museum's loading dock and left without asking for anyone authorized to accept them, the museum's lawyers wrote.

Kenney has set an in-person settlement conference for December 2. The trial is set for August 16, 2027.

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