Congratulations to Partner, Daniel Crespo, and Associate, Ava Vahdat, of the Woodland Hills office on achieving an amazing result in a highly contentious dispute involving allegations of wrongful death, habitability, and construction defects all-in-one! This litigation was heavily contested and set for trial preference during a global pandemic. Plaintiffs alleged that improper repairs caused property damage, habitability issues, and the death of one of the immuno-compromised Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs alleged they were entitled to damages relating to wrongful death, habitability, repairs, diminution of value, relocation costs, successor-in-interest claims, and punitive damages. Essentially, Plaintiffs threw the whole book at the BWB&O client.
Throughout the litigation, Mr. Crespo and Ms. Vahdat fought back on all of Plaintiffs’ claims from basic elements of causes of action (such as duty), to liability, and to damages. This was a full court press against all claims and allegations! Ms. Vahdat also successfully drafted and argued a Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings knocking out six causes of action and leaving just two causes of action remaining as to BWBO’s client. This victory greatly limited Plaintiffs’ recoverable damages at trial. Despite multiple defense victories, Plaintiffs continued to act as if they had a slam dunk case at trial. Illustrative of this is that prior to the mediation, Plaintiffs served a purported policy limit demand of $1 million on BWBO’s client specifically. In total, Plaintiffs were seeking to blackboard a total of $3.25 million from all parties combined at the mediation.
During an evening mediation with much back and forth contesting liability and damages, Mr. Crespo skillfully and successfully negotiated a settlement in which BWB&O’s client’s share of the global settlement was $75,000. That is 92.5% below Plaintiffs’ demand! This hotly disputed and convoluted wrongful death, habitability, and construction defect case resolved for far less than Plaintiffs’ purported damages and prior to expert discovery and trial preparation. With this matter now globally resolved, the carriers and the client are very pleased with the result!
