The former chief financial officer of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is suing the museum, saying its director and board chair withheld $144,691.60 in severance out of spite and retaliation. Valarie McDuffie filed her complaint in May in Philadelphia's Court of Common Pleas, accusing director Daniel H. Weiss and board chair Ellen Caplan of withholding the money on a manufactured pretext. The museum counters that McDuffie broke the agreement by factory-resetting her work phone, possibly destroying messages relevant to a separate wrongful-termination suit.

McDuffie is seeking the unpaid sum, a further 25 percent under Pennsylvania's wage law, reimbursement for her health-insurance premiums and her legal costs. She says the two leaders can be held personally liable for controlling the decision, and values her unpaid administrative leave and severance together at $189,546, a figure the museum disputes. The museum calls the suit meritless, saying the severance was not earned wages because payment depended on her meeting her contractual duties.

Its counterclaim, filed in July, says McDuffie erased her phone around 12 February, her final day of active employment, after the museum's general counsel directed her in November 2025 to preserve records linked to former director Sasha Suda's case. The museum says she used the phone regularly to communicate with Suda, including about expenses and raises at the heart of her dismissal. It also accuses McDuffie of violating the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. She denies wrongdoing; a federal judge declined in September to dismiss the hacking claims.

McDuffie says she was told of her termination around 16 January; she and the museum's general counsel, Rebecca Wui, signed the agreement on 5 February, listing 27 March as her final day. It reportedly promised the lump sum within 21 days plus health premiums through 30 June. The dispute stems from the board's dismissal of Suda in November 2025, three years into a five-year contract; Suda sued within a week, and Weiss, the former president of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, took over weeks later. A settlement conference is set for 2 December, with trial scheduled for 16 August 2027.