About Christine Spagnoli
Christine D. Spagnoli focuses on product liability, personal injury, and legal malpractice. She was a central member of the trial team in the 1999 General Motors defective fuel tank case that produced a landmark $4.9 billion verdict, and co-counsel in a $58 million verdict for a man severely burned by a defective O-ring, the largest personal injury verdict in California at the time. She has obtained significant results in Ford 15-passenger van cases: a $73 million verdict in Sacramento (including $50 million in punitive damages) and a $25.9 million verdict in Florida, both named among national Top 100 Verdicts. She served as plaintiffs' co-lead counsel in the Federal Express Orland bus crash cases, which settled on the eve of trial in 2017.
She earned a 2017 Harry M. Philo Award from AAJ and was the first woman named Trial Lawyer of the Year by CAALA in 2012. She has served as President of CAOC (2009) and CAALA (2002) and was appointed by the Chief Justice to the CACI civil jury instructions committee. She received her B.A. from UCLA (1978) and her J.D. cum laude from Loyola Law School (1986).
Proven verdicts and settlements
A Los Angeles jury ordered General Motors to pay $4.9 billion after six people, including four children, were trapped and severely burned when the defectively placed fuel tank on a 1979 Chevy Malibu ruptured in a rear-end crash on Christmas Eve 1993.
A Sacramento jury awarded $73 million, including $50 million in punitive damages, after a Goodyear tire tread separation caused a Ford E-350 church van to flip four times on I-5, killing two passengers and injuring two others.
A Los Angeles jury awarded $58,137,361 to a construction worker who suffered third-degree burns over 75 percent of his body when a defective O-ring on a Caterpillar scraper caused flammable hydraulic fluid to spray onto a hot engine, producing what was then the largest single-plaintiff personal-injury verdict in California history.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
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