Esther Nakajjigo was raised in Uganda by an unwed teenage mother in a two-room home with a dirt floor. From these humble beginnings, she became a spokesperson for women and girls as a teenager, and at the age of 17, she started and operated her own hospital. The next year, she
became Uganda’s first Ambassador for Women and Girls. Esther then created the most successful reality television show in Uganda by turning the camera’s focus on the plight of unwed mothers. The television series empowered women throughout the country and led to improved gender equality in Uganda. Esther came to the United States to attend a leadership program for humanitarian entrepreneurs. She was just 25 years old when she was tragically killed while exiting Arches National Park in Utah when an unsecured swing arm gate swung into traffic, pierced through the passenger side of the car, and decapitated her. Her newlywed husband, who was driving the car and sitting inches away from his wife, was covered with her blood and body parts. Esther’s husband and parents alleged that the United States Park Service was negligent in maintaining and operating the park’s swing gates, leading to Esther’s death. The United States admitted fault, and the trial in federal court proceeded on the issue of damages. The trial was followed closely by Esther’s fans in Uganda, and Ugandan news outlets observed that the American system of justice was “on trial” before the worldwide stage. The result was the largest wrongful death verdict issued by a federal judge in Utah history. As a result of this case, all parks in the United States Park systems now have secured posts/locking mechanisms on swing gates. This case confirms that record verdicts in important cases can be achieved by a trial team comprised entirely of women.

Alfredo Martinez and Justin Page worked at Southern California Edison’s South Bay office. In February 2017, Page made an anonymous report to the company’s ethics hotline that a supervisor at South Bay was engaging in sexual and racial harassment and abusing his expense account. Soon after, Martinez made two separate reports that women in the South Bay office were being subjected to sexual harassment. An investigation by Edison International’s ethics department confirmed that three planning supervisors engaged in sexual harassment and/or racially inappropriate behavior, and the three supervisors were terminated. During and after the initial sexual and racial harassment investigation, Page reported additional allegations, including eventually reporting that he, too, was subjected to sexual harassment both by the male supervisors and also a female South Bay employee. Also, during and after the initial sexual and racial harassment investigation Page and others reported that the three supervisors and their “clique” were threatening and planning to retaliate against those who reported the issues in the first place. Both Martinez and Page were subjected to retaliation as a result of having the courage to speak up about the widespread harassment. Martinez was pushed out of SoCal Edison after almost 16 years of employment based on pretextual allegations of misconduct. Page alleged he was subjected to threats of violence and other acts of retaliation, which he reported but which Edison did not meaningfully address, forcing him onto a leave of absence from which he never returned. After nearly five years of litigation and an eight-week trial, a jury found both Martinez and Page were retaliated against, and that Page was also sexually harassed, awarding the largest verdict in California for any kind of case in 2022 and the largest employment-related jury verdict in U.S. history for any kind of employment case.

Matthew Andreeff suffered from neurofibromatosis, which caused him to develop skin lesions.  He also suffered from chronic kidney disease. Immediately before undergoing elective surgery for the excision of a neurofibroma on his abdomen, he suffered an acute kidney injury. At the direction of a Kaiser hematologist, he was given two medications, DDAVP and NovoSeven. Andreeff also had chronic kidney disease. NovoSeven had never been tested for use in patients with acute kidney injury or chronic kidney disease, nor had NovoSeven ever been tested in combination use with DDAVP. Surgery was uneventful, but the next day Andreeff’s creatine level rose dramatically. He was transferred to intensive care and placed on a ventilator. Four days later he was taken off the ventilator but did not awaken, and a CT scan showed he had suffered a large stroke. He will need 24/7 care for the rest of his life. The elective surgery should not have gone forward with clear evidence of an acute kidney injury superimposed on chronic kidney disease; the surgeon should have postponed the surgery until Andreeff’s kidney function was optimized. Had surgery not gone forward, Andreeff would not have suffered his stroke. His surgeon testified that she was not responsible for clearing him for surgery, but his primary care physician and nephrologist both testified that she was. Also, the medications he received before surgery were significant contributing factors to his stroke. The hematologist who prescribed the medications testified that she believed Andreeff had an 8-10% chance of a blood clot that could lead to a stroke as a result of the drugs. During the arbitration hearing, Hodes and Kaiser’s attorneys argued over how many hours of care Andreeff would need each day, as well as what his life expectancy would be. The arbitrator ruled in favor of Andreeff and awarded him more than four times the amount Kaiser had offered.

Latrina Gray was an 11-year-old special needs child who was emotionally disturbed and developmentally delayed. She had a terrible history of abuse since birth. By age 10, Latrina had been transferred from more than a dozen group homes and had multiple hospitalizations for suicidal thoughts and psychotic delusions. She was at a Pasadena Unified School District school for special needs children when she was sexually assaulted by three students who dragged her behind a building and penetrated her digitally and with a large paper clip. The assault took place after a teacher’s assistant left the students unsupervised. The assault caused Latrina to have a mental breakdown and ultimately placed in a mental institution, where she remained for years. She was the example of the most vulnerable and helpless in our society. The defense argued that
her psychological harm was not caused by the assault but was pre-existing, and contended she was lying about the assault. To prove the assault, the attorneys focused on Latrina’s mental state before versus after the event. Her therapist testified that Latrina went from minor behavioral issues before the assault to major outbursts and overt sexual misconduct afterwards. As trial approached, it became clear that Latrina was psychologically unable to testify about the incident or her harm. As a result, Latrina was declared unavailable under the evidence code due to her psychological injuries. The court ordered that the jury was not allowed to be told why she was absent from trial, which was very challenging considering she had no family or friends to testify on her behalf. Despite these difficulties, after a three-week trial, the jury awarded Latrina significant compensation, all in noneconomic damages. This case shows that negligence victims with psychological traumas who cannot withstand the pressures of trial can still get full justice.

When one of the world’s leading vitreo-retinal surgeons botched an elective eye surgery for treatment of floaters, the plaintiff was left blind in one eye. Three doctors – the defendant surgeon, another retinal surgeon and an internationally known neuro-ophthalmologist – all told the plaintiff that he had suffered a rare, never before reported reaction to the anesthesia injected into his eye and that his blindness was not the result of negligence. Consequently, before plaintiff found Jennifer, several attorneys rejected this case. Jennifer’s gut instinct (she is a former registered nurse) was that the doctors’ explanation was wrong, and she was determined to find out what really happened. While nearly 20 expert witnesses refused to testify against the defendant, Jennifer was not deterred. She found a Stanford-trained retinal specialist who, upon review of the pertinent records, discovered that the defendant had injected the anesthesia into the wrong area of the eye. Having established that, Jennifer had to know why a world renowned expert in floater surgery would inject anesthesia into the wrong area. After the surgeon disclosed in deposition that he had undergone cancer treatment, including chemotherapy before the plaintiff’s surgery, but told the plaintiff that he was fully recovered at the time of surgery, Jennifer subpoenaed the doctor’s medical records. Those records revealed that the doctor had suffered a disabling side effect of his chemotherapy treatment, peripheral neuropathy of the hands and feet, affecting the exquisite feeling and sensitivity he needed to use the equipment required to perform the plaintiff’s surgery. Incredibly, the records also showed that the surgeon was collecting disability payments and had declared he was not working when he operated on the plaintiff. Jennifer’s grit and determination led to a settlement including the insurance policy limits and a substantial contribution from the doctor. Most importantly, this surgeon finally stopped operating, preventing him from blinding anyone else.