We are elated to share the news that the significant verdict reached by a Portland jury in the 2020 Oregon fires case was selected by the Courtroom View Network as the first in its Top 10 list of most impressive plaintiff verdicts for 2023.
We’re excited to announce that associate attorney, Zachary Gussin, has been selected as one of the Puget Sound Business Journal’s monthly “Next Gen in Law” honorees for February. This honor is bestowed by the publication upon attorneys who have been practicing for 10 years or less, and who it describes as “rising stars in the Puget Sound region who are helping the business community thrive.”
Keller Rohrback is proud to announce that the firm has once more been named to Law360’s select list of Practice Groups of the Year. In the awards’ 14th year, the admission range for case achievements was from October 1, 2022 to October 6, 2023, and for Keller Rohrback included successes in both the Class Action and Environmental practice area categories. Law360 is the country’s foremost online publication site for legal news and analysis, and the Practice Groups of the Year awards “honor the attorney teams behind litigation wins and major deals that resonated through the legal industry.”
A jury in Portland, Oregon awarded approximately $84 million in compensation from PacifiCorp to nine survivors of the fires that swept across Oregon on Labor Day 2020. The verdict, which consisted of $6 million in economic and $56 million in non-economic damages, translates to an award of more than $84 million after the doubling of economic damages and the addition of punitive damages of 25% that are automatically applied given the jury’s verdict in the first Phase of the case. This verdict is the first trial exclusively on individuals’ damages after a historic class action verdict last year that established that PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, was liable to the entire class for causing the devastating fires. It is the second jury verdict awarding damages to injured class members, and maintains a trajectory which, according to PacifiCorp, represents more than $25 billion in total damages to the class.
Left to right: Matt Melamed, Mirén First, Jen Wagner
Keller Rohrback takes great pride in announcing three new partners at the firm. Mirén First attained her title from within the firm’s Seattle office, while Jen Wagner and Matt Melamed each made lateral moves from other firms.
Keller Rohrback partners Lynn Sarko, Gretchen Freeman Cappio, and Derek Loeser have been included in Lawdragon’s 2024 500 Leading Lawyers in America guide for the third year running. Lawdragon is one of the preeminent legal media companies in the industry and their annual Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America is the most elite distinction in the profession, covering the best of the best in all practice areas.
Keller Rohrback is excited to welcome associate attorney Katherine Klein to the Complex Litigation team. Katherine, who will be joining the Denver, Colorado office, has significant experience working with environmental and conservation issues. Katherine earned her JD in 2021 from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. Prior to joining Keller Rohrback, she served as a law clerk for the Honorable Stephanie L. Scoville in the 2nd Judicial District for the State of Colorado, and more recently for the Honorable John Daniel Dailey of the Colorado Court of Appeals.
On August 18, 2023, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered this case and a number of related cases to be transferred to the District of New Jersey for coordinated proceedings. On December 6, 2023, Keller Rohrback partner David Ko was appointed to the Executive Committee for the Self-Funded Payer Track of the MDL In Re Insulin Pricing Litigation.
Keller Rohrback is pleased to share the news that Judge Kronstadt in the District Court of the Central District of California has granted Final Approval of a settlement between the Toyota Defendants and consumer Plaintiffs in In Re: ZF-TRW Airbag Control Units Products Liability Litigation. This Toyota-specific settlement does not resolve claims against other automobile manufacturers.
