Largest verdicts in California

David Casey Jr. of CaseyGerry was appointed by Judge Charles Breyer as the sole San Diego attorney on the 22-member Plaintiffs' Steering Committee overseeing MDL 2672, the consolidated clean-diesel emissions fraud litigation that produced a $14.7 billion settlement against Volkswagen.

A Los Angeles jury ordered General Motors to pay $4.9 billion after a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu's rear-mounted fuel tank ruptured and burned six occupants in a rear-end crash, the largest US personal-injury verdict at the time.

A Los Angeles jury ordered General Motors to pay $4.9 billion after six people, including four children, were trapped and severely burned when the defectively placed fuel tank on a 1979 Chevy Malibu ruptured in a rear-end crash on Christmas Eve 1993.

Acting as outside trial counsel for Los Angeles County, the firm then known as Greene, Broillet, Taylor, Wheeler and Panish helped recover approximately $3.3 billion for the county through the 1998 nationwide Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.

Khaldoun Baghdadi was on the plaintiffs' trial team that won a federal jury verdict topping $1 billion for six California patients harmed by DePuy's metal-on-metal Pinnacle hip implants, an award the trial judge later cut to about $543 million.

Kevin Boyle of the firm served as one of three plaintiffs' co-lead counsel in the $800 million settlement with MGM Resorts for victims of the 2017 Route 91 Harvest festival mass shooting at Mandalay Bay.

In multidistrict litigation before Judge Andrew J. Guilford, CaseyGerry served as class counsel in a $393.5 million settlement resolving allegations that Wells Fargo secretly loaded unnecessary collateral protection insurance onto auto loan accounts, pushing hundreds of thousands of borrowers into delinquency and causing roughly 27,000 wrongful vehicle repossessions.

Mary Alexander & Associates served as co-counsel for seven California counties and three cities in a landmark public-nuisance action that secured a $1.15 billion trial judgment (later reduced on appeal to pre-1951 homes) and ultimately resolved in 2019 for $305 million to fund lead paint abatement across California residences.

A Los Angeles County jury ordered Rebecca Grossman and former Major League pitcher Scott Erickson to pay $198.17 million for the deaths of two brothers, ages 11 and 8, struck in a marked crosswalk near their home.

A Los Angeles jury awarded $198.17 million to the Iskander family after two young brothers were struck and killed in a Westlake Village crosswalk, with Nick Movagar of M&Y Personal Injury Lawyers serving as co-counsel alongside Brian Panish.

A Las Vegas jury awarded hedge fund manager David Moradi $160.5 million after Cosmopolitan security personnel beat him at the Marquee nightclub and left him with a traumatic brain injury, and a confidential settlement followed during deliberations on punitive damages.

A Riverside County jury found Moreno Valley Unified School District 90 percent at fault for keeping teacher Thomas Lee West in the classroom for two decades despite molestation complaints, awarding $135 million to two former students he abused.

McGee Lerer Ogrin represented 14 of the 124 survivors whose claims were resolved in a $122.5 million settlement with the City of Santa Monica over decades of child sexual abuse by a PAL volunteer the city failed to stop.

Gayle Blatt served on the five-member Plaintiffs' Executive Committee that secured a $117.5 million settlement in multidistrict litigation arising from the largest data breach in history, covering roughly 3 billion Yahoo accounts compromised between 2013 and 2016.

Walkup shareholder Michael A. Kelly served on the plaintiffs' leadership team that secured a $117 million settlement from former PG&E officers and directors over wildfires that ranked among the deadliest in California history.

Steven Campora of Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora joined a coalition of firms that secured a $117 million settlement from 20 former PG&E officers and directors on behalf of the PG&E Fire Victim Trust, resolving breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims tied to the 2015 Butte Fire, 2017 North Bay fires, and 2018 Camp Fire.

Gillin, Jacobson, Ellis and Larsen recovered $111.7 million for 186 patients who underwent medically unjustified cardiac procedures at Tenet Healthcare's Redding Medical Center, the largest single-firm share of a $395 million mass settlement.

A San Diego jury held former county toxicologist Kristin Rossum and San Diego County responsible for the 2000 fentanyl killing of Greg de Villers, awarding his family $106 million in a wrongful death case tried by John Gomez.

A San Diego jury found Robert O. Young, author of the best-selling book "The pH Miracle," liable for $105 million after he treated Dawn Kali's breast cancer with baking soda infusions and told her to skip conventional care, an award a judge later cut to about $25.9 million.

A San Diego Superior Court jury returned a $94.5 million verdict for Otay Mesa developer Roque de la Fuente II after finding the City of San Diego breached a development agreement and damaged his 312-acre Border Business Park through airport planning announcements and commercial truck routing that blocked access to the site.

A Sacramento jury awarded $73 million, including $50 million in punitive damages, after a Goodyear tire tread separation caused a Ford E-350 church van to flip four times on I-5, killing two passengers and injuring two others.

A Sacramento jury ordered Ford to pay $73 million, including $50 million in punitive damages, after a tire tread separation caused a 15-passenger van to roll four times on Interstate 5, killing two Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church members and injuring two others.

An Alameda County jury awarded $61 million, including $50 million in punitive damages, to two Lebanese-American FedEx Ground drivers a manager harassed with ethnic slurs, a verdict the trial judge later cut to $12.4 million.

A Los Angeles County jury found Bill Cosby liable for drugging and sexually assaulting Donna Motsinger in 1972 and awarded her $59.25 million, including $40 million in punitive damages, the largest civil judgment Cosby has faced.

A Los Angeles jury awarded $58,137,361 to a construction worker who suffered third-degree burns over 75 percent of his body when a defective O-ring on a Caterpillar scraper caused flammable hydraulic fluid to spray onto a hot engine, producing what was then the largest single-plaintiff personal-injury verdict in California history.

A Davidson County jury awarded Fox Sports reporter Erin Andrews $55 million after finding that the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt negligently disclosed her room location to a stalker who altered a peephole to film her without consent.

Wagner Jones Kopfman & Artenian secured a $54.6 million federal jury verdict on behalf of roughly 840 California Walmart truck drivers who went unpaid for mandatory pre- and post-trip vehicle inspections, controlled layovers, and rest breaks spanning more than a decade.

A Los Angeles County jury awarded $53.7 million to two brothers left with traumatic brain injuries after a CRST big rig crossed the center line on State Route 14 and hit their car head-on.

A Fresno County jury awarded $49.8 million to a Kingsburg mortgage broker left in a permanent vegetative state after an American Ambulance paramedic dislodged his breathing tube during transport and could not restore his airway.

A Van Nuys jury held the City of Los Angeles responsible for catastrophic injuries to a pedestrian struck inside a marked Encino crosswalk by a city sanitation truck.

A 12-year-old's catastrophic injuries from a rotten campground tree produced a $47.5 million pretrial settlement against San Mateo County, PG&E, and their contractors, reportedly the largest single-plaintiff personal injury settlement in California history.

Gayle Blatt of CaseyGerry served as court-appointed co-lead counsel in a multidistrict proceeding against 23andMe, securing a $46.75 million settlement for approximately 6.9 million customers whose genetic ancestry profiles and personal data were stolen in a 2023 credential-stuffing attack.

Wagner Jones Kopfman & Artenian secured a $43.5 million judgment in Fresno County Superior Court on behalf of roughly 700 North American Title escrow officers who were denied overtime pay for years, though the judgment was later reversed by the Court of Appeal in 2026.

A Riverside County jury awarded Carlos and Rosalia Fernandez $41.95 million in June 2023 after a mentally ill man grabbed an unsecured baseball bat from the sporting goods aisle of a San Jacinto Walmart and beat the couple, leaving both with traumatic brain injuries.

Conor Kelly and Melinda Derish proved that a Bakersfield hospitalist never examined Kody Myrick or ordered a neurology consult, letting a treatable basilar-artery stroke destroy his brain stem, and a San Francisco jury fixed his damages at $38.6 million.

One hundred twenty-nine former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory workers, most of them over 50, shared a $37.25 million settlement after a series of jury trials established that the lab breached their employment contracts during a 2008 mass layoff that followed privatization of the facility.

A San Bernardino jury awarded $36.1 million to a child who suffered a traumatic brain injury and multiple fractures after being struck by a car while crossing mid-block to reach her school bus stop, finding Durham School Services 80% liable for failing to prevent the dangerous crossing.

Chris Dolan represented the surviving Tran family and reached a $36 million settlement with Alameda County after an off-duty deputy who had failed his psychological exam shot Maria and Benison Tran in their Dublin home.

A Los Angeles jury awarded $35,285,942 to an 81-year-old man who suffered a spinal fracture and permanent injuries after a tractor-trailer rear-ended the vehicle he was riding in on Interstate 10.

A Sacramento County jury awarded $34,921,215 to Debra Hackett and her husband after a Silva Trucking tractor-trailer jackknifed on Highway 12 and left Debra paralyzed from the waist down with a traumatic brain injury.

A Haitian-American urological surgeon was subjected to a felony-level takedown on the Santa Monica Freeway after LAPD ran the plates on his rental car and received a stolen-vehicle alert caused by Budget Rent-A-Car's own plate error.

Mary Alexander served as lead plaintiffs' counsel representing 13 of the victim families in litigation against the City of Oakland over the December 2016 Ghost Ship warehouse fire, which killed 36 people, securing a $32.7 million settlement covering 32 families and a survivor.

A Sacramento County jury awarded $32.16 million to the two young children of Juan Carlos Rodriguez after a City of Sacramento police detective drifted across the fog line on Interstate 5 and struck Rodriguez and his brother, killing both men.

A Butte County jury held MasterCraft 80 percent liable for a design defect that caused the bow of a fully loaded X45 wakeboarding boat to submerge on Lake Oroville, throwing Niki Bell into the propeller and permanently destroying her left eye and part of her frontal lobe.

A Los Angeles jury awarded $29,062,351 to Javier Perez, who was 16 when a doctor's car struck him in a crosswalk and left him with a brain injury, finding the driver entirely at fault despite no witnesses or video.

An 11-year-old with an IEP requiring door-to-door transport was abandoned at the school curb by district staff, struck by a car on a four-lane road, and left with permanent brain damage; the $28.5 million settlement against Victor Elementary School District was the largest pedestrian accident settlement in California in 2019.

A Tulare County jury awarded $28,163,528 after finding Caltrans 90% liable for a 13-year-old's catastrophic injuries at a 60 mph, five-lane crosswalk the agency had known was dangerous for two decades.

A San Diego Superior Court jury awarded $26.5 million to Anderprises Inc. after Caltrans used eminent domain to take a 2.8-acre strip for the Route 905 freeway, cutting off access to the remaining 55 acres of the Anderson family's Otay Mesa land.

An Orange County jury found Yamaha's YXZ1000R side-by-side defectively designed and awarded $26.3 million to Justin Van Tussenbrook, a Utah man paralyzed when the vehicle's rollover protection structure collapsed at low speed.

Wilshire Law Firm served as class counsel in a $25 million settlement resolving claims that Apple misrepresented Family Sharing's ability to share third-party app subscriptions across family accounts.

A 27-year-old Bay Area woman suffered permanent paralysis after an Acura dealership employee, acting as a self-appointed Good Samaritan, forced her vehicle off I-680 and into a catastrophic rollover; the case settled for $24 million, the largest personal-injury settlement in Northern California for 2016.

A Sacramento jury awarded $24.3 million, then reduced to $22.5 million under a High-Low Agreement, to a 14-year-old girl who was crushed beneath the rear wheels of her father's big rig and faced at least 19 more surgeries.

Stanislaus County agreed to pay $22.5 million to settle a federal civil rights suit brought by criminal defense attorney Frank Carson's estate and seven co-plaintiffs who were acquitted after a years-long murder conspiracy prosecution. The firm served as co-lead trial counsel, representing four of the eight plaintiffs and negotiating roughly $12 million of the total; Morrison & Foerster represented the other four.

A Madera County jury deliberated for one hour before awarding $21,513,000 to an 18-year-old farm laborer left partially paralyzed after the van he was riding in was rear-ended at a railroad crossing.

David Long tripped on two inches of exposed trolley track left by construction grinding crews at the 12th and Imperial MTS station and suffered a spinal cord injury that left him quadriplegic; the case settled for $21.5 million.

A Contra Costa County jury returned a $21.4 million verdict against Chevron Corp. in March 2019 for the benzene-exposure deaths of brothers Gary and Randy Eaves, who spent years spraying a benzene-based solvent onto tires at an Arkansas plant without respirators, protective clothing, or safety warnings.

GJEL attorney Luke Ellis secured a then-record $20.452 million settlement for an 18-year-old who lost her left leg when an AC Transit bus struck her in Montclair, California, the largest individual recovery against any bus company in California history.

Walkup attorney Matthew Davis represented the families of five Irish students killed and seven survivors injured when a Berkeley apartment balcony sheared off in 2015, reaching a partial settlement of more than $20 million on confidential terms.

A San Francisco jury awarded former Wyndham sales representative Trish Williams more than $20 million after the company fired her for reporting a scheme that defrauded elderly timeshare buyers.

A Fresno County jury awarded women's basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein $19.1 million against California State University, Fresno, then the largest employment verdict against a public entity in U.S. history, for sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation; the case settled for $9 million after post-trial motions reduced the award.

An Alameda County jury awarded $18,574,222 to Juanita Cerrato, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after she swerved to avoid a tractor-trailer left blocking her lane on a Fresno highway near midnight.

A federal jury awarded roughly $18.3 million to musician Dax Pierson after a defective seat restraint in a 2005 Ford passenger van separated during a rollover, driving his head into the roof and leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.

A San Bernardino County jury awarded $18 million to two sisters whose insurer offered just $5,000 to repair a home rendered uninhabitable by flood damage, with $12 million of the award in punitive damages against the insurer and its parent company.

A Los Angeles jury awarded $18 million after finding malice when a driver struck two pedestrians in a Calabasas crosswalk, killing the mother, and then moved the victims and gave misleading statements to police to alter the appearance of the scene.

A Los Angeles County jury returned a $17,854,093.94 verdict in December 2024 after finding that Sheriff deputies controlling foot traffic during a large soccer-related street celebration gave hand signals that contradicted active traffic lights, causing a vehicle to strike two pedestrians in a crosswalk.

A Sacramento County jury awarded $17,220,807 to Lethesia Guzman, whose car stalled on the Yolo Causeway before a Morning Star tomato truck set off the chain-reaction crash that killed her fiance and left her with catastrophic injuries.

A San Diego jury awarded $16,702,050, including punitive damages, to Martin Castro-Gonzalez, a 61-year-old man left paraplegic when a drunk driver crashed into the parked truck he was leaning against.

A class of 110 Cathay Pacific pilots secured a $16.65 million settlement in 2024, resolving California wage-and-hour claims over unpaid overtime, missed meal and rest periods, and reserve duty pay that the international airline had disputed for seven years.

A Sacramento jury awarded $16,577,118 to the family of Jennifer Strange, a 28-year-old mother of three who died of water intoxication after competing in KDND radio's 'Hold Your Wee for a Wii' contest -- at the time the largest wrongful-death verdict in Sacramento County.

A Kern County jury awarded William Kidd and his wife Elaine $16.2 million after he slipped at a Bakersfield El Pollo Loco and suffered a brain injury that later required surgery.

A San Diego jury awarded $15,771,234 to the wife and three children of a bicyclist killed on El Camino Real in Carlsbad by a driver who fell asleep at the wheel after a night shift, in what was reported as the largest net wrongful death verdict in San Diego County history.

A San Diego jury awarded $15.5 million after Hyatt hotel staff extended a diabetic guest's reservation without verifying her wellbeing, leaving Cindy Gonzalez uncontacted for nearly a day while she lay comatose between the beds in her room.

Gayle Blatt of Casey Gerry served on the plaintiffs' leadership committee in the consolidated MDL arising from the 2011 hack of Sony's PlayStation Network, which exposed the personal data of approximately 77 million accounts, resulting in a $15 million class settlement.

A Los Angeles jury awarded $13,872,900 to a 42-year-old motorcyclist who suffered neck and groin injuries after a collision with a car, far exceeding the insurer's pre-trial offer of $75,000.

Mary Alexander helped win a $13.3 million jury verdict in Fresno County for Mary Hall, a University of Arizona student left permanently quadriplegic after a Yosemite rental company re-rented a bicycle it knew had defective brakes.

A Tulare County jury awarded $13,284,363 to a nineteen-year-old Farmersville woman who suffered permanent traumatic brain injury and hemiparesis when a multi-vehicle chain-reaction crash sent an oncoming car into her lane.

After a 99-day bench trial, San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin A. Enright awarded approximately $12.775 million in compensatory and punitive damages to 22 women who were deceived into appearing in online pornographic videos produced by GirlsDoPorn, with the court also ordering payment of $8 million in attorneys' fees.

The Dominguez Firm won $11.8 million for Oscar Esparza, a driver left with a traumatic brain injury when a Win Distribution truck rear-ended his stopped car near the I-15 interchange, a result that ranked among the top 20 personal injury verdicts in California that year.

A jury awarded $11.7 million to the family of William Tindall, killed on Marsh Creek Road while stopping to help another motorist during a county road resurfacing project that had already claimed a life five days earlier.

A Navy veteran lost his right leg and the use of his arm after a Navy-operated van triggered a chain-reaction crash on Interstate 5; CaseyGerry secured a $10.8 million settlement, described as the largest federal vehicle-collision settlement in San Diego history.

A San Diego jury returned a $10.8 million verdict against Pizza Hut after one of its delivery drivers drifted across a center divide and hit a mother and daughter head-on, leaving the daughter with a permanent brain injury.

A Sacramento County jury awarded $10.2 million to a couple riding a tandem bicycle on a shared trail in Folsom after a pedestrian stepped into their path and caused a collision that left the wife with a traumatic brain injury.

Lucia Mar Unified School District agreed to pay $10 million in May 2022 to settle negligence claims brought on behalf of a nine-year-old special-needs girl who was repeatedly sexually abused by a school bus driver in 2017, a driver the district had hired despite a prior peeping conviction he concealed on his application.

A Sacramento family received a then-record $9.75 million civil settlement after a Sacramento police officer's department vehicle rear-ended their car at 63 mph on Interstate 80, fatally injuring 9-month-old Raiden Saechao.

Adamson Ahdoot LLP secured a $9 million settlement for the family of a 15-year-old Jurupa Valley student who died three days after collapsing during a 104-degree football practice, after coaches failed to provide water, shade, or emergency care.

A San Diego County jury found the Metropolitan Transit System 40 percent at fault for the death of Anthony McGaff, who was held in a chokehold for more than eight minutes aboard a moving city bus.

Michael Kelly and his Walkup partners co-tried the first DePuy ASR metal-on-metal hip case to reach a jury, winning an $8.3 million Los Angeles verdict for retiree Loren Kransky that the California Court of Appeal later affirmed in full.

Casey Gerry, alongside co-counsel Capretz and Associates, secured an $8 million class settlement fund against the City of Chula Vista on behalf of more than 100,000 wireless phone subscribers who had been charged a telephone user's tax that plaintiffs argued was unlawfully applied to mobile service. The fund covered subscriber refunds along with litigation expenses and attorney fees.

A Fresno County jury found that Chipotle fabricated a theft allegation against a high-performing general manager to mask retaliation for a workers' compensation claim, awarding her $7.97 million in one of California's top employment verdicts of 2018.

A San Diego County jury ordered Starbucks to pay roughly $7.5 million after chiropractor Anthony Zaccaglin slipped on a freshly mopped store floor, struck his head, and suffered a brain injury that ended his career.

A San Bernardino County jury awarded truck driver Efrain Perez roughly $7.3 million after another big rig rear-ended the disabled semi he was helping to repair, throwing him to the pavement and causing a traumatic brain injury.

A San Luis Obispo County jury awarded $6,709,300 to the family of Tricia Rittger, a KSBY sales manager who was struck and killed by an SUV while crossing Shell Beach Road to reach The Cliffs Resort, after the firm proved the resort had violated its own parking policy and a city-issued operating permit.

An 11-day jury trial in Los Angeles ended with a $6.68 million verdict for a 56-year-old customer who slipped on a single grape in the condiments aisle of an El Monte Food4Less, sustaining serious spinal injuries.

A Stanislaus County jury awarded Kerry Bosch $6,678,026 after a company truck driven by an employee of Premiere Raspberries, LLC rear-ended her vehicle on northbound I-5 near Patterson, leaving her with a lumbar disc herniation that required spinal fusion surgery.

A San Diego federal jury awarded the Deruyver family nearly $6.5 million after their 9-month-old daughter suffered third-degree burns from hot coffee at the Omni La Costa Resort and Spa.

A Sacramento jury awarded $6,471,242 to the widow of a 33-year-old sheriff's deputy killed while riding his motorcycle through a poorly configured highway construction zone managed by the State of California and Granite Construction, the largest wrongful-death verdict in Sacramento County at the time.

A Contra Costa County jury awarded Sherrill Smothers $6.1 million after finding General Motors 80% liable for the defective roof design of his 1984 Corvette, which collapsed during a 1988 rollover and left him a quadriplegic.

A Los Angeles County jury awarded wedding photographer Payman Heravi a gross $6.06 million after he broke his arm and tore his shoulder on a tree-root sidewalk uplift the City of Los Angeles had left unrepaired for years, then split fault evenly and cut his recovery to about $3.03 million.

An LACMTA driver opened the doors a full lane from the curb on Florence Avenue, a passing car struck Kevin McElrath as he stepped out, and a Los Angeles jury awarded him $5,771,068.50 with no fault assigned to him.

Sacramento County paid $4 million to a teenager who had been imprisoned, starved, and beaten for seven years while CPS social workers repeatedly failed to act on at least ten documented abuse reports.

A California appellate court refused to let Jelly Belly Candy Company withdraw its attorney's prior admission that a driver operating the company's touring promotional vehicle was acting within the scope of employment when she collided with and injured a California woman, leaving a jury verdict of nearly $3.8 million intact.

A Los Angeles County jury awarded Michael Orrin Jr. $3,375,205 after a driver crossed double yellow lines on the I-405 and struck his motorcycle in the carpool lane, leaving him with severe leg injuries.

A Sacramento jury returned a $3,299,455 verdict for a motorist whose spinal injuries from a 2015 rear-end collision left him permanently disabled, despite the defense contesting both causation and the claimed damages.

A federal jury found that a City of Roy, Washington police officer used excessive force when he shot two unarmed men riding an off-road vehicle during a 2019 snowstorm, awarding $3.26 million.

An Alameda County jury awarded $2.73 million to five test plaintiffs after finding that Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC violated its own inverse-seniority layoff policy when it cut more than 400 workers in 2008.

A Santa Monica jury awarded security guard Reina Castro $2,534,613 after a heavy car wash gate, missing its safety stopper, rolled off its track and crushed her knee on a film set.

A San Diego jury found the Porsche Turbo 930 defective not from a single mechanical failure but because the car's power and handling characteristics made it inherently too dangerous for ordinary drivers, awarding $2.5 million to the family of Donald Fresh in what was the first U.S. verdict of its kind against an automaker.

A Los Angeles County jury awarded Celeste Galvez $2,430,615 in her motor-vehicle injury case against Robert Roland Firchow, a result later ranked among the county's top 50 personal-injury verdicts of 2019.

A Sacramento jury awarded Robert Venkus $1,670,689 after a dump truck driver employed by Biondi Paving drifted into his lane on Arden Way; with CCP 998 costs and accrued interest, the net recovery reached $1,852,325.95.

Doris Cheng of Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger won a $1.4 million Los Angeles County verdict for Maria Renteria after her son, bicyclist Luis Alvarez, Jr., was struck and killed by an LACMTA Metro bus.

Mastagni Holstedt secured a $1,376,827.22 settlement for 534 Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District employees after the district excluded holiday-in-lieu pay and health benefit cash-outs from workers' regular rate of pay when calculating FLSA overtime.

Olivier A. Taillieu and Maura Taillieu of The Dominguez Firm won a $1,025,000 jury verdict in Calcanas v. Schier, a Los Angeles County motor-vehicle injury case that ranked among the county's top 50 personal-injury verdicts of 2019.

San Diego County paid $1 million to the family of Ivan Ortiz, a 26-year-old with schizophrenia who died by suicide in Central Jail the day after staff documented a prior attempt and failed to remove the item he used to take his life.

Former Vallejo Police Captain John Whitney received a $900,000 settlement after the city fired him in retaliation for reporting that officers bent their badges to commemorate fatal shootings.

A Fresno County jury returned an $800,000 verdict for Veronica Ordaz Gonzalez and her boyfriend after sheriff's deputies entered their home without a warrant and shot and killed their dog, Scooby; the Fifth District Court of Appeal later upheld the award.

In the first and only published federal decision on the question, Mastagni Holstedt secured a ruling that Vallejo Police Department mounted unit officers were entitled to FLSA overtime for time spent feeding, grooming, transporting, and training their police horses at home, overturning a contrary Department of Labor opinion letter, with the city ultimately settling the claims for $659,880 through its Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings.

The City of Fresno paid $500,000 to resolve a civil rights lawsuit after bodycam footage and an independent police auditor confirmed that an officer's repeated punches to a 17-year-old bystander exceeded department policy.

Mastagni Holstedt secured a $464,521 FLSA collective-action settlement for 85 City of Richmond firefighters after the federal court issued a published opinion rejecting a Department of Labor regulation that had permitted employers to exclude holiday-in-lieu pay from overtime calculations.

A Los Angeles jury found Candid Camera and host Peter Funt liable for negligence, false imprisonment, and intentional misrepresentation after a prank at a small Arizona airport left Philip Zelnick with leg injuries, awarding $300,000 in punitive damages.

Jesse Fretwell secured a $212,500 settlement from the City of Fresno for Ella Burton, a cyclist who suffered a severely broken leg after slipping on mud and algae built up at an intersection where a faulty city drainage system had gone unrepaired for years.

A Los Angeles jury awarded $117,969 to an electric company worker whose neighbor's German Shepherd jumped on his back, causing cervical spine injuries and PTSD.

In a landmark April 2023 ruling, California's Second District Court of Appeal reversed dismissal of a pedestrian trip-and-fall lawsuit, holding that Bird Rides owes a general duty of ordinary care over its dock-less scooters and can be sued when improperly parked scooters injure members of the public.

In November 2019, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge overruled demurrers filed by Lyft and the City of Santa Monica, finding that an 88-year-old woman who sustained five pelvic fractures after tripping over a Lyft scooter in a posted no-deployment zone had stated viable negligence and public-nuisance claims against both defendants.

Catherine Lerer of McGee Lerer, co-counseling with Costell & Cornelius, filed a class action in October 2018 against Bird, Lime, Xiaomi, and Segway on behalf of riders and pedestrians seriously injured by dockless e-scooters deployed across Los Angeles.

In a December 2017 ruling, California's highest court held that Novartis owed a duty to warn consumers who took a generic bioequivalent of its drug Brethine, allowing twin children injured in utero by generic terbutaline to pursue negligence claims against the brand-name manufacturer.

Christopher Dolan secured a confidential settlement from Uber in what is widely described as the first wrongful-death suit filed against the company over a driver's conduct, after a New Year's Eve 2013 crosswalk collision in San Francisco killed a 6-year-old girl.

John Gomez represented the families of CHP officer Mark Saylor and three relatives killed in a runaway Lexus near Santee, reaching a 2010 settlement with Toyota in the crash that triggered the company's sudden-acceleration recalls.

Gwilliam Ivary filed suit in Alameda County on behalf of roughly 50 UCSF information technology employees who were laid off after the university contracted with India-based HCL Technologies, alleging the replacement workforce was dramatically younger and drawn from a single national origin.