• David prepared and successfully argued an appeal to the Ninth Circuit regarding a district court’s summary judgment order that misinterpreted the parties’ asset purchase agreement.  In 1996, the client sold its swimming pool construction business to the plaintiff.  Decades later, the plaintiff filed suit alleging that the  client was liable under the terms of the asset purchase agreement for all third-party asbestos-related personal injury claims, no matter when those claims arose, so long as the underlying asbestos exposure occurred prior to the sale of the swimming pool business.  The district court agreed with the plaintiff—but the Ninth Circuit agreed with David and his client.  After oral argument, the Ninth Circuit issued a memorandum decision in which it held that the  client was not liable for any wrongful death or loss of consortium claims that arose after the client sold its business. 

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• David won a pair of appeals in the California Court of Appeal for the firm's client--a major airline.  In the first appeal, David successfully argued that the Airline Deregulation Act should be interpreted to bar certain claims against the client.  In the second, he successfully argued that the trial court's award of attorney's fees and costs to the client should be affirmed. 

 

• ​David won summary judgment against the plaintiff’s claims in the Southern District of Texas. The plaintiff alleged that the client—an international petroleum services provider—breached a confidentiality agreement and engaged in fraud in connection with a possible acquisition of plaintiff’s business, causing alleged damages in excess of $12 million. On summary judgment, David disproved key elements of each of the plaintiff’s claims, resulting in a complete defense victory and leaving only the  client’s counterclaims for trial.

 

• David prepared and successfully argued a motion to decertify a consumer class action brought against the client—the world’s largest independent petroleum refiner. Prior to the David's involvement in the case, the district court had certified a class of California purchasers of a certain branded gasoline. After David took over the case, he developed a strategy aimed at showing that the claims should not have been certified. Through further discovery and expert testimony, David obtained an order de-certifying the case, reducing the client’s potential monetary exposure from a claimed $60 million to less than one-hundred dollars. 

 

• David won summary adjudication against all of the plaintiff’s monetary claims in a dispute between the plaintiff and his former employer. In that case, the plaintiff sought millions of dollars of damages based on the allegation that the client had supposedly violated the California Labor Code and Business & Professions Code by failing to timely pay the plaintiff millions of dollars he claimed to be owed because of and upon his termination. David established as an “undisputed fact” that plaintiff’s key allegation was false, leading the trial court to summarily dismiss plaintiff’s damages claims.

 

• David successfully obtained dismissal of a proposed consumer class action in which the named plaintiff alleged that the client, the leading manufacturer and distributor of energy shots, mislabeled its products and misled consumers into believing those products were “all natural.” David helped devise and implement a litigation strategy that resulted in the plaintiff making several key admissions during her deposition. David and his team also marshalled expert opinion testimony that refuted several of plaintiff’s allegations concerning the composition of the products at issue. Following disclosure of these opinions and faced with her own testimony, the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed  the entire case with prejudice.

 

• David paved the way for a complete defense victory at trial for his client, a national event producer, with his pre-trial filings. The plaintiff alleged that it had acquired an ownership interest in David’s client years earlier. The plaintiff sought to exclude from trial damaging evidence that David uncovered during discovery, filing nearly a dozen motions in limine. David successfully opposed those motions, while simultaneously obtaining in limine orders excluding much of plantiff’s “key” evidence and trial theories. David’s client obtained a complete trial verdict and was also awarded its attorney’s fees and costs.

 

• After the district court granted the Firm’s motion to dismiss claims against his client (a large Mexican exporter of produce to the U.S.), the plaintiff appealed. David prepared the winning Ninth Circuit brief on an issue of first impression. The plaintiff-appellant argued that the trial court, among other things, applied the wrong legal standard when dismissing the case. The Ninth Circuit rejected that argument in favor of the David’s argument that, when determining a motion for forum non conveniens, the district court should compare the convenience of the alternative foreign forum with the specific U.S. forum in which plaintiff sued, not with the United States as a whole.

 

• David helped obtain a complete defense victory in a personal injury case for one of the world’s largest software companies. The plaintiff claimed he suffered crippling injuries caused by the alleged negligence of a company that the client had acquired in 2010, seeking millions of dollars in damages. David and his team obtained summary judgment against the plaintiff’s claims (and the co-defendants’ crossclaims for indemnity) by showing that the seldom-used “completed and accepted” doctrine applied in the case.

 

• David helped secure a complete defense victory for the client—the leading designer and seller in the United States of “mega-coasters” and cutting-edge theme park rides. The plaintiff sought nearly $20 million in damages based on allegations that the  client was a monopolist that had unlawfully obtained and enforced its patents for a magnetic braking system. David and his team won summary judgment and thereafter defeated plaintiff’s appeal to the Ninth Circuit.

 

• David obtained dismissal of a lawsuit aimed at preventing his clients, the heirs of a world-famous musician, from securing ownership of their father’s copyrights. The district court agreed with David that the plaintiff did not have standing to bring certain claims and that the plaintiff’s remaining claims were barred by California’s anti-SLAPP statute. As a result, the district court ordered the plaintiff to pay the attorneys’ fees that David’s clients incurred in defending the litigation.