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Jeff, the quick scoop on Larry Drivon is that he is a graduate of Stanford
and and San Francisco Law School.? He's from Stockton and a former San Joaquin County DA.? He's also a retired San Joaquin County judge -- I don't know if that was?a full-time elected position or whether he would be on call to serve as caseloads determine.? He was president of the California Trial Lawyers Association (now California Association of Consumer Attorneys) around 1990 and is currently chairman of the board of trustees of Humphreys School of Law in Stockton. ? He's been involved in at least a?couple of high profile case in the Central Valley, including the case against Ford detailed in the articles below (apparently, the verdict was later overturned due to juror misconduct and a TV show tainted the $290 million verdict).? He was also involved in a highly publicized case in which the Catholic Diocese?of Stockton?was ordered to pay $30 million as the result of molestations by a priest. ? He's well known in trial lawyer circles, and has been a leader in CTLA/CAOC for years.? I'm sure that includes working hard to raise funds for atttorney-backed initiatives (including insurance issues) and candidates.? ? I'll try to get some more substantive info ASAP. ? Ken ? ? ? ? From the Texas tort reform assn. publication: ? Astronomical damage awards set a bad precedent ? by JIM LAFFERTY ? ? Lubbock Avalanche Journal ??Saturday, November 13, 1999 ? ? ? ? ? [IMAGE]E-Mail this article???[IMAGE]Printer-friendly version ? ? ? ? ? MODESTO, Calif. - Now high is up? ? ? That's the question that thousands of giddy personal injury lawyers are asking themselves in the wake, of two astronomical punitive damage awards handed out by California juries within three days of each other in July. ? ? In one of the judgments, Modesto jurors ordered Ford Motor Co. to pay $290 million in punitive damages to a young man whose mother, father and brother were killed when he tipped over his 1978 Bronco on Father's Day 1993. ? ? At the time of the accident, Juan Ramon Romo, then 19, had been driving for a lengthy period of time, so long, in fact, that everyone else in the Bronco - his mother and father, a brother and two sisters had fallen asleep. Going slightly over the speed limit on an interstate highway, Romo attempted illegally to pass another vehicle on the right. ? ? When the other driver decided to move back into the right lane, Romo swerved left and rolled over. His mother, father and brother were killed; he and his two sisters survived. ? ? The $290 million judgment in the Romo case was the second largest ever entered against a U.S. car manufacturer, yet it received little media attention outside the immediate Modesto area. ? ? Hardly surprising, perhaps, since only three days before a Las Angeles jury had set the punitive damage bar impossibly high by ordering General Motors to pay a staggering punitive damage award of $4.9 billion. ? ? By way of a yardstick, that amount surpasses the combined Gross National Product of Afghanistan and Albania. Almost obscured by the astonishing generosity of the jurors in Los Angeles and Modesto, was a salient point that still sends shivers through corporate defense lawyers around the country: By any objective criteria, neither Ford nor General Motors appeared to bear any responsibility for the accidents. ? ? In the Los Angeles case, Patricia Anderson, her four children and a family friend were stopped at a red light in her 1979 Chevy Malibu on Christmas Eve 1993. A drunken driver traveling at 70 mph slammed his car into the Malibu's rear end. The collision ruptured the Malibu's gas tank and ignited the spilled fuel. Mrs. Anderson's four children suffered severe burns. ? ? When police tested the drunken driver he registered a blood alcohol content of 0.20 - twice the legal limit for drivers in California. ? ? Similarly, in the Modesto case, driver error and misjudgment on the part of Romo clearly appeared to be the cause of the accident. ? ? But Romo's lawyer, Lawrence Drivon, immediately blamed the deaths on the Bronco, which he said was susceptible to rollover, and had a defectively designed roof. ? ? Yet the Bronco exceeded all federal safety standards for roof strength in 1978 by more than 100 percent and, in fact, exceeds the 1999 standard by more than 30 percent. ? ? Romo's Bronco also exceeded all federal rollover standards for 1978 model., and federal accident data show the Ford Broncos rollover rate was no higher than that of other SUVs. ? ? It's open to question whether the Bronco had been properly maintained prior to the accident. The vehicle had been on the road for 15 years, had numerous changes in ownership and had nearly 200,000 miles on the odometer. ? ? In addition, Drivon engaged in conduct that borders on jury tampering - mailing to each juror a copy of his book, 'The Civil War on Consumer Rights," whose main thesis is that large American corporations, like Ford, are attempting to close "the courthouse doors" to average Americans by pressing for judicial reforms. In the book, Drivon devotes an entire chapter to Ford's alleged misdeeds. ? ? In part because of Drivon's behavior, a California judge granted Ford's motion to set aside the punitive damage part of the verdict and ordered a new trial. Among other things, he cited improper discussions among the jurors that prejudiced deliberations. ? ? But Ford could be entering double jeopardy with a new trial. Drivon has indicated he will seek to raise the initial punitive award threefold to more than $1 billion. With a sympathetic jury, that could happen. ? ? Damage award, of a few hundred million here and a few hundred million there are still unusual, but California is a national trendsetter. ? ? If juries elsewhere start emulating the ones in Los Angeles and Modesto, our now booming economy could well begin to sputter. ? _______________________________ ? ? Jim Lafferty is a former Associated Press and Philadelphia Daily News reporter who now covers national and international Legal trends as an independent journalist in Washington. Readers may e-mail him at jameslafferty@usa.net. ? ? [IMAGE] California Delivers Second Huge Verdict Against Auto Industry in Just Three Days $295 Million for Three Children Orphaned in Ford Bronco Crash By Christa Zevitas At-A-Glance Size of verdict: $295 million $290 million in punitive damages $5 million in compensatory damages Status: Punitive award overturned and new trial pending. State: California Date of Verdict: July 12, 1999 Length of Trial: 3 months Length of Deliberations: 1 week Case Name: Romo v. Ford Motor Co. Court: Stanislaus County Superior Court, Modesto, Calif. Plaintiffs' Lawyers: Joseph W. Carcione Jr. of Law Offices of Joseph Carcione in Redwood City, Calif. (10 lawyers); Laurence Drivon of Drivon & Tabak in Stockton, Calif. (4 lawyers) Defense Lawyers: Frank Kelly of Dryden, Margoles, Schimaneck, Hartman, Kelly & Wait in San Francisco; Douglas Seitz of Snell & Wilmer in Phoenix, Ariz.; Gary S. Davis of Davis, Echols & Boyd in Modesto, Calif. (6 lawyers) Just three days after a Los Angeles jury hammered General Motors with the largest verdict of the year, another California jury slammed Ford Motor Co. with the year's fifth-largest verdict. The Modesto jury awarded $295 million to three children whose parents and brother died when their 1978 Ford Bronco rolled over in a highway accident. The verdict included $290 million in punitive damages - the second largest punitive award ever against an automaker. The defense argued that the drivers of the two vehicles - not the company - were responsible for the tragedy. But a 12-person jury found the automaker 78% liable for the deaths, concluding that Ford chose to save money by opting for a less sturdy roof design. The jury divided the remaining liability between the two drivers. A company spokesman told The Modesto Bee that "as tragic as [the accident] was, it wasn't our fault, and it wasn't the vehicle's fault." Lawyers for neither the plaintiff nor the defendant could be reached for comment. This story is based on local newspaper and wire stories from the time of the verdict. Bronco Rolls Over On June 20, 1993, 19-year-old Juan Romo was driving five other family members home to northern California when he attempted to pass a van on the right at approximately 50 mph. The van's driver didn't see Romo and changed lanes at the same time, forcing Romo to swerve hard to the right to avoid him. Romo then overcorrected with a hard turn to the left, lost control and, while traveling about 47 mph, the vehicle rolled over - killing Romo's mother, Salustia, 40; his father, Ramon, 39; and his brother, Ramiro, 16. Romo's parents and brother were all wearing their seatbelts and died because the Bronco's roof smashed straight down onto the dashboard and crushed their heads, according to plaintiffs' attorneys. Juan and his two sisters - Evangelina, 14, and Maria, 8 - suffered only minor injuries. Plaintiffs' attorney Joseph Carcione Jr. told The Modesto Bee that the sisters survived because they weren't wearing their seatbelts and were thrown from the Bronco. Romo survived because he ducked below the dashboard, said Carcione, name partner in a 10-lawyer firm in Redwood City, Calif. Romo and his sisters sued Ford, alleging that the automaker knew the Bronco's roof - which was two-thirds plastic - would not hold up in a rollover. Carcione and his co-counsel, Laurence Drivon, argued that Ford knew the roof was unsafe, but decided to save the relatively small cost of reinforcing it with steel - a defect the company corrected in post-1979 model years. According to a press release, Carcione described the roof as a camper top. To manufacture the vehicle, Ford basically chopped off the back portion of a 1978 pickup truck and stuck on the plastic camper top, put a bench seat in the back and removed a warning that had been posted on the camper top that said, "Do Not Ride Under This Camper Top," Carcione said in the release. The plaintiffs' attorneys also contended that the Bronco was unsafe because it was prone to rollover. The vehicle's rollover rate is three to five times higher than any other passenger car and its rollover death rate is almost three times greater than the 1980-1996 model Broncos, they say in a press release. Although Carcione and Drivon lacked explicit documentation to illustrate the Bronco's structural weaknesses, they filled that gap with a prize witness - former Ford executive vice president Tom Feeney, who testified that company officials were aware that the roof was virtually certain to fail in a rollover. Feeney gave additional testimony that in the 27 years he had worked for the company, the Bronco was the worst vehicle Ford ever put out in terms of crashworthiness. Ford countered that the Bronco was perfectly sound and met all federal safety standards, noting that Feeney had "never worked in truck product development." Defense attorneys also argued that Romo was at fault, and that his right-hand passing maneuver was illegal. They contended that the van's driver was also partly to blame. On July 12, 1999, the jury awarded the Romo family $5 million in compensatory damages and $290 million in punitives. At the close of the three-month trial, the plaintiffs' attorneys urged jurors to award punitives totaling $1 billion. They noted after the trial that the $296 million award amounts to only 10 days worth of Ford's net profits. Drivon, partner in a four-lawyer firm in Stockton, Calif., also called the Bronco the most dangerous vehicle Ford ever made. "The American public is waking up to the carnage that's being visited upon the public by some American industries such as tobacco and automobiles," he told the Associated Press. New Trial Pending Following the verdict, defense attorneys asked for a mistrial claiming that Romo's counsel made inflammatory public statements supporting the $4.9 billion GM verdict, which came down while jurors in his own case were still in deliberations. The motion was denied. Ford appealed, and on Sept. 15, the trial judge ordered a new trial on punitives, finding that the case was tainted by juror misconduct. One juror told others of a 60 Minutes II segment about Ford Mustangs and fuel-tank fires, and told them it was "evidence of Ford's malice regarding the 1978 Bronco," wrote Superior Court Judge Roger Beauchesne. Another juror told the jury of "a morbid nightmare" she had in which her child and other jurors' children were killed in a Bronco rollover while being taunted by Ford attorneys, the judge wrote. Beauchesne said the two jurors' comments may have influenced the deliberations and noted that the jury vote on punitive damages was 9-3, the exact majority needed. The Wall Street Journal reported that Carcione said he's "delighted" to try the case again. "Reversing the $290 million award was no victory for Ford. The next jury will award even higher damages," said Carcione in a press release. "Four of the jurors in the last trial wanted to assess punitive damages at a billion dollars or more. The $290 million amount was reached as a compromise." Drivon echoed Carcione's thoughts. "Sooner of later, Ford will have to accept what 12 American jurors will continue to say: That this Bronco is the result of malicious actions by Ford who willfully put profits ahead of people," he said in a press release. Beauchesne upheld the jury's unanimous finding that the Bronco's defective roof caused the deaths of Romo's family members. While Ford expressed its gratitude at the new punitives trial, it may appeal the compensatory damage award as well as the jury's finding of liability. According to wire reports, Drivon advised Ford not to celebrate prematurely. "The best they get out of this is that they're exposed to the verdict of a second jury," he told the Associated Press. , 2000 Lawyers Weekly Inc., All Rights Reserved - email.gif - print.gif - ehhot2.gif
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