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General Civil

Thomas W. Ely (Senior Partner/Irvine) recently obtained a defense verdict in the San Bernardino Superior Court in consolidated lawsuits arising out of a fire that destroyed the a building located in Colton, California. The building was owned by defendant Redlands Security Company and leased to four tenants. On June 25, 2005, at about 5:30 a.m., the Colton Fire Department was notified that this building was on fire. Although the Colton Fire Department quickly responded, the building sustained heavy damage and could not be repaired. As a result of the fire the building was demolished and the four tenants were forced to relocate. According to the fire department investigators, the fire started in an outside storage area accessible to only one of the tenants where paper was stored. Plaintiffs contended that the property owner and lessor's owed them a duty and breached the duty in failing to keep transients from the area and in allowing an allegedly dangerous condition to exist in the storage of papers by one of the tenants. The Colton Fire Department had inspected the building, inside and out, including this storage area many times during its 17 years of use. The Fire department had never notified the lessor or the tenant that they considered it a fire hazard. The lessor's insurance company had inspected the building within two months of the fire and failed to find it a fire hazard.

The head investigator for the Fire Department speculates that transients may have started the fire, although no one saw transients near the building within 24 hours of the fire, and no one found evidence that would indicate that transients started the fire. Plaintiffs' expert, opined that the fire was started by an arsonist, who purposely extended a lighted match into the boxes of paper stored within. Another expert inspected the fire scene and found evidence of electrical arcing caused by a malfunctioning transformer owned and maintained by the City of Colton. According to this expert, this electrical arcing would have produced sparks much like the fireworks at Disneyland, raining down from the roof above the point where the Colton Fire Department says the fire originated.

Defendant argued that it was not foreseeable, that it was reasonable for it to rely upon the Colton Fire Department and insurance company inspections and that it was not liable for the criminal acts of third person. On April 23, 2009, the jury's verdict in favor of Defendant and judgment was rendered against all plaintiff/tenants and in favor of Redland's Security was entered by the San Bernardino Superior Court.

Ronald Zurek (Senior Partner/Los Angeles). In a recent case, our client [then represented by a different lawyer] thought they had settled the case by accepting the other parties’ favorable settlement offers. Unfortunately, when a secretary mistakenly mixed up the acceptance documents between envelopes going to different lawyers, the critical acceptance document did not get delivered to the plaintiffs’ attorney in a timely manner. The case came to Wesierski & Zurek for trial when the plaintiff, refusing to concede that settlement had been reached, pursued trial with the intent to seek far more damages in an amount beyond insurance coverage available to the defendant.

At the trial Ron raised a ‘settlement defense’, claiming that despite the technical failure to have properly accepted, the defendant had actually settled the case by virtue of delivering the acceptance to another lawyer who represented the plaintiff in another capacity. Ron also argued plaintiff attorney’s actual knowledge of intent to settle, and conduct confirming his knowledge of a mistake by the defense, should prevent or stop the plaintiff from claiming that no settlement was made. The court agreed with both contentions and upheld the settlement that prevented further trial proceedings where our client would have likely sustained a large adverse verdict.

In June 2003, Thomas G. Wianecki (Senior Partner/Irvine Office) obtained another defense victory. That case involved the burn death of a spouse who recently purchased a used minivan. In representing the used car dealership, Mr. Wianecki overcame numerous theories of liability. They included the alleged failure to properly inspect the vehicle, selling the vehicle with a compromised fuel system, and breach of warranty (both express and implied). Due to the gruesome injuries suffered, this litigation was highly emotional. Many of the issues were technically complex. Ultimate success was realized because of team effort by the entire firm and the jury rendered a defense verdict.

     Chris Wesierski and Laura Barns were successful recently on an appeal involving two insurance companies.  Progressive was suing AIG for fees and costs paid in an underlying complicated environmental case. The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's judgment that AIG owned half the fees as claimed and with interest the judgment was over $750,000 paid in full.