Experience that informs every case.

A jury in Alameda County Superior Court, the Honorable Brad Seligman presiding, awarded $1,958,461 in economic damages and $11,000,000 in noneconomic damages to the widow and two children of a man who died of mesothelioma at 61. He had been exposed to asbestos as a child — visiting the sugar refinery where his father and grandfather worked, growing up in the company-owned town beside it, and helping his mother launder his father's contaminated work clothes.

The defense was that the danger of asbestos was not understood during the years of exposure and that the company had followed the law as it then stood. The jury rejected it, assigning the refinery's corporate successor one hundred percent of the fault and none to the four manufacturers whose asbestos products were used at the plant.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment in its entirety and denied the defendant's petition for rehearing on November 21, 2019. No petition for review was filed with the California Supreme Court; the decision is final. Lopez v. The Hillshire Brands Co. (2019) 41 Cal.App.5th 679. In the published portion of its opinion, the court addressed for the first time a question California courts had left open: whether the asbestos causation standard of Judicial Council of California Civil Jury Instruction (CACI) No. 435 applies to a defendant who created the exposure but did not manufacture or supply the asbestos. It held that it does. The decision is now citable authority governing how causation is proved against premises owners and employers in asbestos cases throughout California.

Ranked fifth among all California wrongful death verdicts of 2017 by TopVerdict.com.

Recovery for a client seriously injured in a motor vehicle collision. Settlements at this level are reached when the liability investigation and the medical proof are developed far enough that the carrier's exposure at trial becomes the more expensive option.

Recovery following a motor vehicle collision causing lasting injury. Valuing a case of this kind depends on establishing what the client's life and earning capacity will look like decades out, not only on the medical bills already incurred.

Recovery for a client injured on a construction site. These matters usually involve several potentially responsible parties — owner, general contractor, subcontractors — and turn on which of them controlled the condition or the work that caused the injury.

Recovery for an injured motorcyclist. Motorcycle cases carry a defense theme of rider fault that has to be answered directly with physical evidence and reconstruction rather than argued around.