Personal Injury is the practice of civil litigation emphasizing bodily injury arising from accidents. It includes:

– Auto accidents
– Wrongful death
– Motorcycle accidents
– Boats, planes, recreational vehicle accidents
– Accidental injuries to children
– Injuries from animals
– Injuries from defective products
– Elder abuse or nursing home negligence

- Commercial aviation plane crashes

We also handle other types of personal injuries such as:
– Sexual harassment, especially on the job
– Medical malpractice
– Attorney malpractice
– Insurance company bad faith

If you are not sure where your case fits, call us at no charge. We do not handle family law, criminal law, estate and trust practice, or contract and business law, but we might be able to refer you to someone who does.

SOME EXAMPLES OF CASES HANDLED:

(Every firm wants to tell you about some of their bigger cases, so we will, too. But – we emphasize – it's our reputation for big verdicts that allows us to do more for you on the smaller, but no less important, personal injury cases.)

1. A young lady receives serious brain damage, causing seizures, as a result of an auto–truck accident in the Sacramento region. Settled before trial: $6 million. (Senior partner John Poswall has special knowledge in brain trauma having taught Law and Mental Health at the college level and presented, at the Grand Rounds, U.C. Davis to psychiatrists and neurosurgeons on trauma induced frontal lobe injury.)
2. A 48-year-old married man suffers back injuries requiring spinal surgery and associated major depression resulting in hospitalization from a vehicle accident. Neurosurgeons and psychologists were called upon to testify. The case settles the first day of trial: $3 million.
3. In the landmark case of Leonardini v. Shell Oil, a young lawyer is vindicated for speaking out against Shell who tried to silence him with a lawsuit. After the United States Supreme Court denied Shell’s appeals, the giant oil company was forced to pay the Sacramento jury’s award of general and punitive damages, costs and interest: $7.5 million.
4. When two prominent Sacramentans died in an Alaska Airlines plane crash, both families hired Poswall, White, & Cutler who sued Alaska, Boeing/McDonnell Douglas in the United States District Court in San Francisco, under aviation, maritime ad product liability law, and successfully concluded the matters shortly before trial in major, confidential settlements.
5. When Montgomery Wards fired Chuck Garrett, they never counted on him hiring an attorney and suing for wrongful termination. Result: $2.3 million jury award.
6. Three times in the last few years, Poswall, White, & Cutler has won against the City of Sacramento police department for misconduct. Twice for a speeding police car causing injuries, $3.1 million and $300,000 and once for the shooting of an unarmed African American: $3.5 million.
7. A construction worker walked into a Bank of America. As he did, the door opener fell on his head. Poswall, White, & Cutler sued Bank of America, the maintenance company, and the installer. After we rested our case, the defendants paid $1.2 million.
8. In a highly publicized case which drastically changed how restaurants and bars now do business, Chevy’s paid $1.5 million to the parents of a 20-year-old CSUS student who died in a car accident after he and his driver were served alcohol.  For good measure, Chevy’s also agreed to donate $50,000 to CSUS’s alcohol abuse prevention program.
9. A woman sues her employer – a lawyer – for sexual harassment; a woman sues her dentist for sexual battery; a woman sues the vice president of a major HMO for sexual harassment; two women sue a local media outlet, ... four women sue ... and so it goes. Most such settlements are confidential.
10. A retired 65-year-old woman was enjoying dinner with friends in South Lake Tahoe when a piece of meat became lodged in her throat. Not life threatening, but uncomfortable, the matter was addressed by a general surgeon at Barton Memorial Hospital. During the procedure to dislodge the meat, the surgeon punctured the patient’s esophagus and ruptured her spleen. The patient went on to suffer a stroke causing paralysis on the left side of her body. The surgeon refused to settle and forced the case to trial resulting in the first verdict in medical malpractice ever in the South Lake Tahoe court of El Dorado County.
11. A woman underwent a routine removal of wisdom teeth in Woodland, California. She went on to develop a bone infection resulting in a fractured jaw. The case was handled by a firm specializing in dental malpractice, which concluded that the case could not be won. Parker White took the file over, brought the matter to trial in Woodland and obtained a significant verdict on behalf of the client.
12. An 18-year-old son, 4th generation farmer in a Modesto County family was killed in an intersection accident. Parker White took the case to trial in the very conservative County of Tulare and obtained the largest wrongful death verdict ever in such a case there.
13. When a suicidal father of four was allowed to run out the back of an ambulance, make his way to a shooting range and kill himself, Parker White won a verdict at trial and then battled all the way up to the California Supreme Court to retain the verdict for his young clients.

Call us, (916) 449-1300, for a free newsletter with more examples of some of our recent cases.