Representative and Significant Verdicts, Judgments and Settlements:
Premises Liability/Public Entity (Negligence)
Plaintiff was a grade school student in a county school district injured on school premises when he was hit by a falling window pane knocked from its moorings by a ball kicked on the school playground. Defendants were the School and School District. Plaintiff, through his parents, claimed “traumatic brain injury” rejecting numerous settlement offers and proceeding to trial. Plaintiff’s experts testified that he suffered from “biochemical changes at the cytoskeletal level,” a then new theory of brain damage that was discredited during trial. After a three week trial and lengthy competing damages expert testimony, the jury found both the School District and the School not liable.
Premises Liability/Public Entity (Negligence, Failure to Warn, Inadequate Security)
Plaintiffs were patrons of the Alameda County Fair on July 4, 1998 when a gang gun battle broke out between rival gang members on the midway resulting in serious gunshot and stampeding injuries to multiple Fair patrons. The firm represented the County and its Sheriff’s Department and the County Fair Association, winning summary judgment for its clients on the grounds of various immunities and an absence of duty to warn of criminal conduct. The case was appealed and the appellate court ruled in favor of all of our clients, upholding the summary judgment.
Premises Liability (Negligence)
Plaintiff, an attorney, sustained major head and other injuries when he fell from his bicycle after it hit a culvert at the intersection of a county road and the driveway to our client’s winery. Case resolved for nominal amount with summary judgment motion pending.
Premises Liability/Public Entity (Negligence, Inverse Condemnation, Dangerous Condition of Public Property, Nuisance, Trespass, Mandatory Duty)
Plaintiffs were property owners near Carmel California who were forced from their homes due to El Nino flooding events on a nearby river. Plaintiffs alleged numerous tort causes of action against multiple riverbank property owner defendants, including the county and a public entity represented by our firm, as well as inverse condemnation against the public entity defendants. Plaintiffs claimed $12 million in damages. The complex case involving water damage claims with interlocking theories of surface and flood water damages resolved in favor of our firm’s public entity client following the filing of a motion for summary judgment.
Employment/Negligence/Design Modification
Plaintiff, a temporary farm worker, was run over at work by a large piece of farming equipment and sustained severe orthopedic injury. Our client had hired plaintiff for the job from a temporary worker agency. Plaintiff claimed that the driver of the farming equipment was negligent and that our client had negligently modified the farming equipment in a way that impeded the forward vision of the driver. After the court failed to grant summary judgment for defendant on the ground that workers’ compensation was his only remedy (the exclusive remedy rule). At trial, the jury found our client not liable, that the plaintiff was comparatively negligent and that workers’ compensation was his exclusive remedy.
Motor Vehicle Accident/Elder Care/Negligence/Wrongful Death
Plaintiffs, the surviving children of decedent, brought a wrongful death suit against an elder care facility after their father died following a motor vehicle accident involving the van in which he was a passenger. The plaintiffs contended that the driver operated the van negligently and failed to secure the decedent properly in his wheelchair.
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