AREAS OF PRACTICE
Knowledge-Driven Litigation
We have led and participated in some of the nation's highest profile cases, bringing justice and recoveries to those who have suffered from defective products and corporate misconduct, forcing large corporations to compensate the injured and, where possible, initiate recalls and improve product safety so as to prevent future injuries. Our legal practice focus on developing the proof to force a successful resoluion, and litigating, in a wide variety of technical and scientific areas, including vehicle design and safety systems, child safety seats, defective drugs and medical devices, tobacco addiction and medical causation, hydrology, and statistical and economic analysis.
OUR APPROACH
CLIENT-FOCUS APPROACH
We are committed to our clients' interests, which first and foremost means understanding and discussing your needs and goals. While we challenge and take on powerful corporations and institutions and hold them accountable for their actions, the focus remains on justice for you. This means that we focus on cost-effective litigation, which seeks if possible, early resolution and settlement, but we are prepared to, if need be, bring major cases to trial and subsequent verdicts.
Practice focusing in the following areas:
Insurance Bad Faith
Each year Americans spend more than $1.1 trillion for life and health (L/H) and property and casualty (P/C) insurance. With this coverage comes a requirement that the insurer treat its insureds with the "upmost good faith": placing the insured's interests equal to or above its own profits in handling claims.
We specialize in addressing insurers failures to provide the coverage and service that has been promised to its policy holders, often aggregating small claims through the use of carefully crafted Class Actions to change insurance claims practices while getting policyholders what they were promised.
Vehicle Defects
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Park-to-Reverse Vehicle Defect
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Vehicle Transmission Malfunctioning
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Fuel Fed Fire
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Auto and SUV accidents
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Defective Car seat
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Catastrophic accidents
Drug / Medical Device
Damages sought against negligent medical device and product manufacturers for producing and selling products with safety defects and health dangers include general and compensatory damages for:
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Past and future physical pain and suffering, mental anguish and physical impairment;
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Past and future medical, incidental and hospital expenses;
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Past and future loss of earnings and earning capacity;
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Punitive damages; and
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Wrongful death when the victim was killed.
PARK TO REVERSE LITIGATION
NHTSA refers to the "Park-to-Reverse" issue as "Unintended Powered Roll-Away" and has opened numerous investigations of these events over the last 35 years.
PARK TO REVERSE VEHICLE DEFECT
"Park-to-Reverse" issues are nearly always caused by a design flaw in a vehicle's transmission which makes it possible for a driver to unknowingly place the vehicle's shift selector into a position in between the Park and Reverse gear positions. Yet rather than being in Park, this area is a transitional zone between gears, which is sometimes called "false park". When a vehicle's transmission is in false park, it appears to the driver that the vehicle is fully locked in Park. However, on vehicles with this defect the transmission is neither in park nor in hydraulic reverse. Instead, it is in neutral, an unstable position between the two gears.
What is the danger?
From this false park position, slight movements in the vehicle, vibration, or the build up of hydraulic pressure in the transmission can then cause the vehicle to reengage powered reverse after a delay from a few seconds to longer periods of time (what is called a "self shift"). This will cause the vehicle to suddenly and without warning move backwards unexpectedly under engine power. If the driver has exited the vehicle with the engine running (to, for example, retrieve an item, open a gate, or close a garage door etc.), a vehicle in false park can shift into powered reverse from a few seconds to several minutes, after the driver has exited, and then run over the driver or a bystander.
Park to Reverse Vehicle Defect Lawsuits
First park-to-reverse case against Chrysler in 25 years to make it to trial
In 2007, Scott Nealey took Mraz v. DaimlerChrysler to trial in a case that involved the death of a Los Angeles dockworker killed by a park-to-reverse defect in a Dodge Dakota. A jury in Los Angeles Superior Court returned a verdict of $55.2 million, including $50 million in punitive damages, while on appeal the case was eventually resolved for $24 million. California Lawyer called the Mraz victory against DaimlerChrysler, “one of the year’s largest personal injury verdicts,” and noted “this was the first park-to-reverse case against Chrysler in 25 years to make it to trial.”
Mr. Nealey was also the lead trial lawyer in a subsequent trial against Chrysler that resulted in a $7.2 million verdict in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, and has prepared for trial, and resolved, a number of additional automobile and other product defect matters.
Who's Affected?
Park-to-Reverse
Inadvertent movement defects allegedly exists on many millions of Ford and Chrysler vehicles on the road today, as well as on certain vehicles made by other companies.
More information of this defect and makers and models affected is available at our Park-to-Reverse PSA site at www.parktoreverse.com.
