Verdicts and Settlements

Nothing speaks louder than results, and our firm has a strong track-record that we have continued to build upon over the last thirty years. Among our verdicts and settlements are:

• $19.5 million overtime class action for insurance salespeople
• $9 million wrongful death
• $8 million orthopedic and psychiatric injury
• $8 million head injury
• $7.5 million business fraud
• $5.5 million wrongful death
• $5.5 million shooting injury
• $5.18 million overtime class action for hotel managers
• $5 million wrongful death/premises liability
• $4.5 million orthopedic injuries
• $4.2 million unsafe roadway
• $4 million psychiatric injury
• $4 million S.U.V. rollover
• $1.5 million class action for unpaid vacation

Recent Results

Tosco Refinery Fire: Four men were killed and two others injured at the Tosco Corporation Avon refinery in Martinez when highly flammable naphtha spurted from a pipe and ignited. Another worker was injured when Tosco allowed gasoline to leak into a fire water line and a fire hose became a flame thrower. The firm served as lead counsel for all the plaintiffs against Tosco. The claims were based on budget cutbacks by Tosco that resulted in deteriorated maintenance and safety procedures, and caused increased workloads that reached unsafe levels. Hinton, Alfert & Sumner settled three of the cases for a total of $21 million.

Death by Deliveryman: After an extensive legal battle, a Santa Clara auction house agreed to pay millions of dollars to settle claims for the wrongful death and injuries suffered by a family as a result of the auction house's failure to uncover an employee's criminal record. In January of 2000, two men invaded a Contra Costa home where they beat and terrorized the occupants and murdered the head of the family. One of the invaders was previously sent into the home as a deliveryman for the auction company. The company hired the worker without inquiring about his background which included a felony conviction for firing a gun into an occupied dwelling. The case settled two days before trial.

Extended Stay America Hotels Pays For Managers' Extended Hours: Hinton, Alfert & Sumner, working with co-counsel, obtained a $5.18 million settlement in an overtime class action on behalf of several hundred hotel managers working for Extended Stay America. The company treated the managers as exempt from the overtime laws, even though the managers spent much of their time on the same physical and menial tasks as their subordinates. The company also agreed, as part of the settlement, to raise the managers' compensation and decrease their time staffing the front desk and cleaning.

Bus Strikes and Kills Cyclist: Hinton, Alfert & Sumner settled a wrongful death case against the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority for $1.5 million. The settlement for non-economic damages only was recovered by the parents of a 32 year-old woman who was struck and killed by a bus as she rode her bicycle into the cross-walk on a green light.

Warning - Black Ice: We settled a wrongful death and injury case against the state of California for $1.6 million arising out of a collision caused by black ice on Highway 50. Plaintiffs were returning from Lake Tahoe on a sunny clear morning when they unexpectedly encountered black ice on the roadway that caused their vehicle to cross the center line of the road and strike an oncoming car head-on. We developed evidence that showed the State was aware that this location was prone to forming black ice in clear and cold conditions but failed to make the roadway safe.

Land Rover's Side-facing Seats Lead to Child's Death: Hinton, Alfert & Sumner settled a design defect case against Land Rover for an amount that is confidential. The wrongful death action arose out of the death of a child, who was killed in a rollover collision involving a Land Rover Discovery I. During the collision, the rear side-facing seat, in which the child was seat belted, was partially ejected through the side window. The child's parents are using the settlement proceeds to establish a foundation to warn the public about the risks of this design.

Heavy Equipment Failure: The operator of a massive hydraulic concrete cutter was severely injured when a hydraulic fitting failed, causing a loss of brakes and steering. As the machine careened down a steep hillside street, the operator was forced to turn off the road, to avoid smashing into a passenger car coming up the street. The machine launched into the air, flipped, and came to rest when it smashed into the roof of a garage. Hinton, Alfert & Sumner established that the manufacturer of the machinery had used improper and inadequate hydraulic fittings, which caused the failure. The case settled before trial.

Auto Club Misclassified Its Sales Staff to Deny Overtime Pay: Automobile Club of Southern California refused to pay its insurance salespersons overtime until Hinton, Alfert & Sumner and its co-counsel won a federal court judgment that the Company had misclassified the sales people as 'exempt' from the federal overtime laws. Ultimately the company agreed to pay $19.5 million to settle the overtime and related claims for its current and former sales people.