Aliso Viejo, CA
Litigation Lawyer at Aliso Viejo, CA
Practice Areas: Litigation
OUTCOME: Verdict in favor of Comarco in the net amount of $9.7 million.
Dispute over the manufacturing of consumer electronic products by a Chinese company named Chicony Power Ltd. Defective manufacturing processes caused overheating and resulted in a recall.
OUTCOME: $16,274,966 jury verdict in favor of Mr. Chapman's client
A man was rendered a quadriplegic when weights on a piece of exercise equipment crashed down on him. The plaintiff was Harold Leon Bostick, a 31-year-old first-year law student at Pepperdine University ... and part-time actor/model. The defendants were Flex Equipment Co., Inc. and Gold's Gym, Inc. On January 4, 2001, plaintiff was doing squats using a Smith machine at the Gold's Gym in Venice Beach. The Smith machine is a piece of exercise equipment that attaches the weight-lifting bar to a vertical track on either side of the bar and can be latched off using a hook-and-peg system. The adjustable safety stops, which slide up and down the vertical track, swivel so that they come to rest on round metal pegs and prevent the bar and weights from crashing down and injuring the user. On this particular Smith machine, the safety stops were removed and replaced with a ‘dead stop‘ with a clearance of 21 inches from the floor. As plaintiff was using the Smith machine, he was crushed under the weight and rendered a quadriplegic. He sued the manufacturer of the Smith machine, Murrieta-based Flex Equipment Co., Inc., and Gold's Gym, Inc., alleging negligence, strict product liability (defective design and failure to warn), and breach of implied warranty of merchantability. Plaintiff alleged that the Smith machine was defective in design in that Flex failed to install safety stops that would have prevented the weight-lifting bar from coming down too far and injuring its user. Plaintiff alleged that Flex failed to warn potential users of the Smith machine that the safety stops had not been installed.
OUTCOME: Defense jury verdict in favor of Mr. Chapman's client
The jury verdict ended almost 20 years of litigation regarding a popular commercial insulation product. The litigation pitted the insurance industry, fire departments, manufacturers, testing agencies a ... nd expert consultants from various disciplines against each other in a battle over whether aluminum foil insulation unreasonably spreads fires. Over $70,000,000 in property damage and business interruption claims were made against the product. One jury found that the product Mr. Chapman was defending, aluminum foil insulation, was defective. Undaunted, Mr. Chapman obtained a defense verdict in this case and a finding that this product was not defective. The manufacturers of the product wanted to vigorously defend their product. Insurance companies wanted to settle for economic reasons; it was cheaper to settle than to provide a full defense through trial and one jury had already found a similar product to be defective. An article in a major fire journal condemned the product and an investigation by a television journal show criticized it. Mr. Chapman convinced his client's insurance company to stand behind its insured and Mr. Chapman obtained a defense verdict in this case. No known cases of this type have been filed since this jury verdict was awarded.
OUTCOME: Confidential settlement in favor of Mr. Chapman's client while on appeal
Mr. Chapman represented the installer of aluminum foil insulation in a large commercial warehouse that caught on fire. During the trial, Mr. Chapman and his co-defense counsel won a motion for non-suit ... on the grounds that the plaintiff had failed to prove that Mr. Chapman's client had actually installed the aluminum foil insulation in the building that burned down. After the judge dismissed the case, the judge found that the case was frivolous from the very beginning and awarded $1.5 million to the defendants as a sanction against the large insurance company that filed and prosecuted the case and the large law firm representing the insurance company. Mr. Chapman's client and the other co-defendants were satisfied with an offer made in the case was settled while it was on appeal.
Ad
Transform legal challenges into solutions.
Connect now to review your situation.
