Wisner Baum is a national award-winning law firm that has obtained some of the largest settlements and verdicts in recent history. Our team has successfully represented thousands of clients across the United States and abroad in personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits, class actions, whistleblower claims and more. We have decades of experience taking on negligent corporations and entities to hold them accountable for the harm they have caused.
The legal industry has recognized Wisner Baum with prestigious awards, including Law360’s Regional Powerhouse award and Product Liability Practice Group of the Year. The National Law Journal has twice awarded them with Elite Trial Lawyers Trial Team of the Year and inducted them into the Verdicts Hall of Fame. Wisner Baum is also listed in U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms” and has maintained an AV® preeminent peer-review rating by Martindale-Hubbell for decades
With more than $4 billion in verdicts and settlements we take pride in our approach to litigating cases and doing what is needed to get the best resolution possible for our clients. Collectively, our attorneys have conducted trials in more than 200 cases, including aviation disasters, truck accidents, pharmaceutical drug injuries, and product liability.
With experience, skill, the resources and relentless dedication, we commit to overcome and resolve some of the greatest challenges on behalf of consumers and injury victims, both in our home state of California, nationwide, and even internationally.
While the majority of cases involving complex litigation—from commercial transportation cases to drug product liability cases—will settle before a trial is ever conducted, our attorneys at Wisner Baum always prepare each one of our cases as if it were going to trial.
Some clients prefer to have their case resolved before trial, while others desire to see their case result in a trial. Regardless of the final outcome, we feel that preparing each case as if it were going to trial has a significant impact on the behavior of the defendants in settlement negotiations and in the courtroom.
We also strive to find ways, using our history of success, to shine the spotlight on important issues that affect consumers and to improve the safety of the unsafe products or harmful practices which brought about the litigation in the first place. Our safety advocacy campaigns have helped improve transportation, medication and consumer products affecting the public at large.
In May of 2019, the jury in the case of Pilliod et al. v, Monsanto Company ordered the agrochemical giant to pay $2.055 billion in damages to the plaintiffs, Alva and Alberta Pilliod, a Bay Area couple in their 70s. R. Brent Wisner served as co-lead trial attorney for the Pilliods, delivering the opening and closing statements and cross-examining several of Monsanto’s experts. Wisner Baum managing shareholder, Michael Baum and attorney Pedram Esfandiary also served on the trial team in the Pilliod case.
The judge later reduced their award to $87M. Monsanto appealed the Pilliod’s verdict which the California Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District denied on August 9, 2021. Monsanto then requested the California Supreme Court review the appeal’s court decision, which the court denied on Nov. 17, 2021. Monsanto (Bayer) then submitted a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court which SCOTUS denied on June 27, 2022, allowing the final judgment of $87M to remain intact.
$289.2 million jury verdict in Monsanto Roundup trial
Wisner Baum co-represented Dewayne “Lee” Johnson in the first Roundup cancer lawsuit to proceed to trial. On Aug. 10, 2018, a San Francisco jury ordered Monsanto to pay $39.25 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages to Mr. Johnson, a former groundskeeper who alleged exposure to Monsanto’s herbicides caused him to develop terminal non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Months after the jury verdict, the judge overseeing the trial reduced the punitive damages to $39.25 million. Mr. Johnson decided to accept the remittitur, bringing the adjusted amount awarded to Mr. Johnson $78.5 million.
Monsanto (Bayer) appealed the verdict and Johnson cross appealed. On July 20, 2020, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the verdict against Monsanto but reduced Mr. Johnson’s award to $20.5 million. The company chose not to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, ending the litigation.
In 2016, Wisner Baum attorney Timothy A. Loranger and six other attorneys in the Plaintiffs’ Management Committee were able to secure a $265 million settlement for victims of the 2015 Amtrak 188 derailment in Philadelphia, one of the largest in the U.S. for 2016.
