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General Liability and Casualty

The risk of a lawsuit has become a reality for every business. As a result, businesses of all kinds need protection for their assets, yet also need to pay for its obligations—medical costs, property damages and legal costs.

Walsworth’s team works with in-house counsel and claims representatives to resolve claims in an efficient and cost-effective manner. We represent a variety of businesses, including retailers, restaurants, public entities, commercial property owners, and individuals in self-insured and insured claims and lawsuits under general liability insurance policies.

We litigate a full scope of general liability matters, including but not limited to:

  • Personal Injury (from slip and falls to catastrophic/wrongful death)
  • Assault and Battery
  • Premises Liability
  • Property Damage
  • Government Entity Liability
  • Unfair Business Practices
  • Trespass and Nuisance
  • Motor Vehicle/Commercial Automobile
  • Trucking Law
  • Landlord/Tenant

Understanding Our Clients

Our investment in understanding our clients’ businesses and operations tailors our representation and helps to inform a strategy that is suitable to meet specific objectives. That, coupled with our experience in handling numerous property and personal injury claims, allows us to not only oversee a claim or lawsuit, but to also suggest new and improved policies and procedures for managing both existing and future matters. Our goal is to stabilize or decrease the number of claims or lawsuits our clients face.

Actively Defending Claims

With a general liability team of over 40 attorneys, for more than 25 years, Walsworth has handled hundreds if not thousands of this type of claim, which affords us the opportunity to actively manage and thoroughly evaluate them to identify risk and potential exposure.

While we focus on resolving cases early in the process, we are fully prepared to defend our clients in trial when necessary.

Representative Successes

  • General Contractor v. Subcontractor – Obtained summary judgment for a subcontractor client in a case alleging breach of contract and negligence. The plaintiff was the general contractor on a large Caltrans project and argued it was owed a six-figure amount due to the subcontractor’s alleged faulty work. However, the court agreed with our position that a recent decision of the Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) in a pending California State License Board hearing acted as collateral estoppel and prevented the general contractor from pursuing its claims. In that prior hearing, the ALJ found that our client’s work was not faulty and that the general contractor had withheld payment in bad faith.
  • Desimone v. Select 1 Realty – Represented owners and managers of a leased residential property where the plaintiffs/tenants claimed that a four-month-old baby died as the result of exposure to mold, allegedly caused by water leaks in the home. Following the retention and review of the case by our expert, the defense position was that the baby died as the result of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The plaintiffs ultimately accepted an extremely low value settlement.
  • Robinson v. Large Corporation – Successfully defended and favorably resolved a catastrophic personal injury matter with debilitating injuries. The case involved a vehicle collision where we defended an employee driver who was under the influence of alcohol, and had admitted liability. The case resolved for less than 25 percent of the initial demand following expert depositions and pre-trial motions.
  • Lhotka v. Geographic Expeditions Successfully negotiated a settlement for a fraction of the original demand in a wrongful death case involving a climb on Mt. Kilimanjaro.
  • Vivas v. Southern Counties Express – Secured a defense verdict in a case involving an accident between a small car and a tractor-trailer. It was suspected that this was a fraudulent lawsuit and, during trial, we proved that two of the plaintiffs had lied under oath about critical aspects of the case.
  • Green v. Property Owner – Represented the property owner of a large commercial and retail center in Los Angeles in a case where a disabled woman in a wheelchair fell and broke her neck on the premises. Compliance with building codes and a prior accident at the same location were at issue. We successfully secured a settlement for a fraction of the 7-figure demand.
  • Represented the largest natural gas distribution utility in the United States in the settlement of an employee-driven auto accident case.