Hawkins Parnell Secures Defense Judgment on Behalf of E.F. Brady Company, Inc., Reversing Its Share of a $107 Million Verdict
On behalf of client E.F. Brady Co., Inc., Jerry C. Popovich, Partner-in-Charge of the Orange County office of Hawkins Parnell & Young, LLP, and partner Melanie M. Smith obtained a judgment notwithstanding the verdict in the matter of Hernandezcueva et al. v. American Standard Inc. et al., case number BC475956, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles.
In an order filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Judge Cary Nishimoto vacated a $107 million verdict against Union Carbide Corp., Elementis Chemicals Inc., and E.F. Brady Co. Inc. in a suit over Joel Hernandezcueva’s death from mesothelioma. The court found on post-trial motions that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict as to E.F. Brady and is entering judgment in favor of E.F. Brady.
“We have been defending E.F. Brady Company, Inc. for well over a decade against these claims,” said Popovich. “We have sympathy for the Hernandezcueva family for all that they have been through, but we remain confident that E.F. Brady Company played no role in causing Mr. Hernandezcueva’s cancer. It has been an up-and-down process, winning at the first trial in 2013, only to have a part reversed on appeal. Then losing with the jury in this second trial, to have the decision corrected for E.F. Brady Company by Judge Nishimoto in these post-trial motions. This long journey, we are sure, will continue back to the Court of Appeal.”