Florida

Cases

• Won affirmance for Michelin to preserve a defense verdict WTO won in a nine-week product liability trial in Florida with $80 million to $1.2 billion at stake.
• Successfully represented Aimco, one of the largest apartment owners in the U.S., in nationwide litigation alleging intentional torts against Airbnb. After jury selection in the first trial, Airbnb settled all litigation on terms allowing Aimco to control short-term rental activity consistent with its contract and property rights.
• Won a complete defense jury verdict for Michelin following a nine-week product liability trial in Florida in which the plaintiffs requested damages between $80 million and $1.2 billion following a rollover accident involving Michelin tires. WTO also won the appeal.
• Called in two weeks before trial in Florida to defend a correctional healthcare provider in a case with 8-figure exposure involving an inmate's unsuccessful suicide attempt. Case settled successfully before trial.
• Won a precedential, Third Circuit opinion for Volvo that vacated a district court's order to certify classes in six states to pursue claims that the sunroof drains in all Volvo models manufactured from 2003 to the present are defective. The circuit court remanded the case with instructions to "rigorously analyze predominance in the first instance."
• Obtained a favorable outcome in a Florida medical malpractice trial involving the death of a 43-year-old man following out-patient hernia surgery. Brought in just a week before trial, the WTO team effectively argued for our client in court, leading the jury to assign primary liability to the patient's family and a non-party surgeon, not to WTO's client. The resulting jury award was less than what our client had offered during trial to settle the case.
• Won a defense verdict for a Florida hospital in a three-week medical malpractice trial. The case involved a baby who suffered cerebral palsy after a rare delivery complication. The plaintiff sued the hospital for $7 million, claiming complications could have been avoided had a C-section been performed. The WTO team successfully argued the complication was unpredictable and unpreventable, and the doctors actually saved the mother and child.
• Defended medical malpractice claims brought against a Florida hospital after the death of a bariatric surgery patient. WTO lawyers were called in a month before trial to rehabilitate the defense's case, leading to a favorable settlement for WTO's client shortly before trial was scheduled to begin.
• Won a defense verdict for Pizza Hut/Yum! Brands in liability case stemming from an automobile accident involving a delivery driver.
• Won a defense verdict in a medical malpractice case in Florida involving permanent brain injury to a well-known plaintiff's lawyer. WTO was asked to take over the case two weeks into trial and after both local and regional defense counsel recommended settling the case for $12-15 million.
• Obtained dismissal with prejudice of plaintiffs' class action allegations in a putative nationwide class action alleging that more than one million of Whirlpool's refrigerators were defective.