Hersh & Hersh has a long history of successfully protecting the rights of individuals, both through trials and settlements. In addition to obtaining significant monetary compensation for many of our clients, we have been able to use litigation to remove defective products from the market and bring about changes in company policies. As a result, we believe that we have been able to protect a large number of consumers from abuses at the hands of large companies and others. Our cases have included:

Hersh & Hersh Successfully Arbitrates Cerebral Aneurysm Malpractice Case Against HMO
Hersh & Hersh successfully represented through an arbitration hearing a woman and her husband in a medical malpractice case against Kaiser for failing to diagnose a cerebral (brain) aneurysm despite the woman's multiple visits to urgent care and calls for help for blinding, debilitating headaches. Finally, the aneurysm burst and the patient became paralyzed, and later died of the injury.

One of the major problems in the medical care in this case was that she was forced to see a nurse practitioner instead of a doctor, a cost-saving but dangerous trend in medical care. The Nurse Practitioner failed to understand what questions to ask and what she was seeing, so she made a diagnosis of "headache" instead of sending the patient to a neurosurgeon.

We hope that the successful outcome of the case produced more careful evaluation of headache patients and better education and usage of Nurse Practitioners.

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Hersh & Hersh Proves the Importance of Evaluating Work-Related Injuries to Determine if Third-Party Claims are Appropriate
Hersh & Hersh successfully represented a carpenter who was severely injured at a jobsite due to faulty scaffolding construction. The client not only had a workers' compensation claim with his employer, but also a claim against the scaffolding company and the general contractor.

It is important to evaluate injuries in the workplace to see whether or not an injured worker has a third-party personal injury claim as well as his or her workers' compensation claim. The injured person may well be entitled to substantial compensation in addition to workmen's' compensation coverage.

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Hersh & Hersh Successfully Replenishes Trust Depleted by Attorney's Negligence
Hersh & Hersh successfully represented a trust that had been depleted of almost all of its substantial assets due to an environmental claim that other attorneys had mishandled.

A receiver appointed by another state retained us to represent the interests of the beneficiaries. We determined that trust assets had been improperly paid, on behalf of the receiver and the beneficiaries of the trust, and recovered a significant amount of money from the attorneys who had originally represented the trusts.

During his lifetime, an individual created several trusts to benefit his loved ones. After his death, the State of California claimed that trust property had caused pollution to several pieces of real estate. But the attorneys retained to defend the trusts also agreed to represent persons in a position of conflict with the trusts and the beneficiaries. Without doing proper investigation, the attorneys agreed to pay substantially all the trusts' assets to the State of California.

In its legal malpractice actions, Hersh & Hersh must prove that the underlying action (here a toxic claim against the business, which was part of the trust) was improperly handled in order to achieve the proper result. We handle legal malpractice cases selectively in all areas of practice.

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Hersh & Hersh Wins Case against HMO in Tay-Sachs Genetic Screening Tragedy
Hersh & Hersh represented an infant and her parents against a large HMO in a tragic case that easily could have been avoided. The infant was born with a fatal, excruciatingly painful, progressive, neurodegenerative disorder called Tay-Sachs disease, a genetic disorder that is easily diagnosed by simple, reliable, genetic testing.

The HMO claimed that it had in place a proper program for screening for congenital diseases, including this one. In fact, it had no such program. The HMO was aware that the parents were in a high-risk group for the congenital disease (and thus appropriate candidates for testing) but still did not do the tests. As a result, the baby was born with Tay-Sachs. She suffered excruciating pain until her death shortly before her third birthday. Her parents had to suffer the horror of witnessing this tragedy every day.

Normally, recovery for pain and suffering in cases of medical malpractice is limited by California law to $250,000.00 regardless of the devastating nature of the injury. In this case, we achieved compensation for this family in excess of this amount by successfully arguing that the HMO's failure to have a program in place that assured that Tay-Sachs would be properly diagnosed was not medical malpractice, but rather constituted fraud, negligent misrepresentation and a violation of the public policy of California that declares that pre-natal screening for hereditary disease is a right of each person in the State of California.

As a result of this case Hersh & Hersh and the family believe that the case helped get the HMO to heighten awareness of flags for genetic screening among all practitioners, and to understand the critical nature of follow-up on genetic screening.

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Hersh & Hersh Achieves Multi-Million Dollar Result for Family of New Mother in Parlodel Death
In this case, Hersh & Hersh represented the father and two minor children in a pharmaceutical product liability and a related medical malpractice case arising out of the death of the wife and 21-year-old mother just two weeks after she gave birth to her second child.

The mother was prescribed a drug known as Parlodel after delivering her second child via Cesarean section on July 30, 1992. Because she had just undergone major surgery, she elected not to nurse. Despite the fact that Parlodel was not necessary to dry up her milk production, her physician prescribed Parlodel for this purpose. Parlodel carried with it the known risk of stroke when given to women in the post-partum period. Despite this information, the drug company marketed it and the physician prescribed it. The mother appeared at the emergency room on several occasions with all the signs of Parlodel toxicity, but it went unrecognized by all of her physicians. Finally, upon the insistence of her mother, she was admitted to the hospital, but no steps were taken to avert an apparent impending stroke. She died in the hospital two days after admission.

Hersh & Hersh represented the family in this products liability action and related medical malpractice case and achieved a multi-million dollar result for the family.

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Hersh & Hersh Recovers Substantial Compensation for Families in Series of Felbatol Cases
Felbatol was a highly touted anti-spasmodic medication manufactured by Carter-Wallace, a major drug company. The manufacturer claimed it was superior to all other anti-spasmodics because physicians did not have to run laboratory studies to measure blood levels as was required by other drugs because of related dangers, such as aplastic anemia (almost always fatal), liver failure (also almost always fatal) and other life-threatening side effects. This was wrong and Carter-Wallace knew it was wrong.

Shortly after the drug was approved for sale by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) based on Carter-Wallace's erroneous information, patients began to die of aplastic anemia, liver failure and other demonstrated serious side effects.

Investigation disclosed that Carter-Wallace knew of these potential side effects but did not disclose them because of the effect on the "bottom line". It would have hurt profits.

Hersh & Hersh successfully represented a substantial number of people and families affected by Felbatol, recovering substantial compensation for each.

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Jury Awards $41 Million  to Women whose Mothers Took DES During Pregnancy
A Manhattan jury ordered four drug manufacturers to pay $41,000,000 to eleven women who suffered injuries to their reproductive systems as a result of their mothers using the drug, diethylstilbestrol (DES), widely advertised as a miscarriage preventative.

Hersh & Hersh was successful in demonstrating that not only was the drug ineffective, but that it caused a rare cancer (clear cell adenocarcinoma) in the reproductive tract in daughters whose mothers who consumed this drug. In addition, the jury determined that the drug caused other serious injuries to the daughters' reproductive systems.

DES has been taken off the market as a treatment to prevent miscarriage in pregnant women.

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Hersh & Hersh's Case Against Gun Manufacturer Provides Model for Other Such Cases
A fourteen-year-old high school student accidentally killed his best friend with his father's "unloaded" Beretta semi-automatic kept in the home for "safety". The gun had a poorly designed "load chamber indicator" and was not equipped with any type of safety lock.

Hersh & Hersh, along with the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence and the parents of the dead boy, filed a product liability action against Beretta seeking to compel the gun manufacturer to utilize available safety devices to prevent tragedies like this from happening.

This was the first such case to survive Beretta's heretofore successful pretrial maneuvering and was presented to a jury. Unfortunately, the jury found that the homeowner (the father of the boy who killed his friend) was mostly responsible. Although this case was unsuccessful, it provided a model for much other litigation that is still pending against gun manufacturers which seeks to hold them responsible for placing unsafe guns in the stream of commerce. Guns are responsible for thousands of accidental/non-intended deaths each year.

This is an example of a case taken, pursued and tried to conclusion for no fee. While this litigation was pending, Hersh & Hersh and the parents offered to waive any fee and settle the case for no money if Beretta would agree to effectuate safety changes in their handguns. Beretta refused.

Of interest is the fact that the trial court ordered a new trial of this matter, which is now pending.

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Hersh & Hersh Successfully Settles Defective Soil-Sifting Machinery Case
In this case, Hersh & Hersh represented a young worker whose arm was sucked into a piece of soil-sifting equipment while he was operating the machine. The machine did not have a guard at the "nip point" where his arm became caught nor was there any emergency power cut-off switch to turn the machine off once plaintiff's fingers became stuck. The worker's arm was slowly sucked into the machine over the course of several hours until a passerby was able to free him. His right arm was permanently deformed and is almost useless.

The young worker brought an action against the foreign corporation that manufactured and distributed the defective equipment as well as his employer and the landowner who was engaged in a joint venture with plaintiff's employer for the removal and sifting of sand in the Sacramento Valley.

The case was settled prior to trial for a substantial amount.

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Jury Awards over $800,000 to Plaintiff Seriously Injured by Faulty Ladder
Hersh & Hersh successfully represented a plaintiff in a case against the manufacturer of a defective ladder. The plaintiff was using an extension ladder in his home when it slipped out causing him to badly fracture both of his heels - recognized as one of the most painful types of injuries - from which he was never again pain free.

Hersh & Hersh and the man argued that the ladder was defectively designed and that a proper design would have prevented the slip and, thereby, the fall. The jury agreed and, after a three week trial, awarded the plaintiff $891,000.00 because of his continued pain and disability.

Note: We have disclosed dollar amounts or other details of a judgment or settlement only in those cases where such information is not protected by a confidentiality agreement.

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