Mark Robinson
Proven VerdictsAbout Mark Robinson
Mark P. Robinson Jr. founded Robinson Calcagnie, Inc. in Newport Beach and led it until his death in 2023; the firm now lists him as a retired partner emeritus. Admitted to the California bar in 1972, he earned his B.A. from Stanford University and graduated cum laude from Loyola Law School. He devoted his career to consumer safety and products liability, most famously as plaintiff's co-counsel in Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company, the Ford Pinto fuel tank case in which an Orange County jury awarded $128 million in compensatory and punitive damages, a trial the Association of Trial Lawyers of America recognized as one of the ten most significant civil trials of the past millennium. In 2017 he led the trial team in Echeverria v. Johnson & Johnson, where a Los Angeles jury awarded $417 million to a single talcum powder plaintiff; the trial court later granted judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
His other results included a $46 million verdict in Solorio v. Nissan, a $51 million Vioxx verdict in Barnett v. Merck, and co-trial counsel roles in the $4.9 billion Anderson v. General Motors verdict. He held leadership appointments in more than fifteen federal MDLs and state coordinated proceedings, including lead and liaison counsel in the Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Cases and co-lead settlement counsel for the Route 91 Las Vegas shooting cases. He served as 2014 national president of ABOTA, 1999 president of the Consumer Attorneys of California, was a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, received the CLAY Award four times, and was named 2018 Trial Lawyer of the Year by the National Trial Lawyers.
Proven verdicts and settlements
A Los Angeles jury ordered General Motors to pay $4.9 billion after a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu's rear-mounted fuel tank ruptured and burned six occupants in a rear-end crash, the largest US personal-injury verdict at the time.
Gerald Barnett, a retired FBI agent from South Carolina, took Vioxx starting in 1999 for chronic neck and back pain and suffered a heart attack in September 2002 at age 58, followed by quintuple bypass surgery. His case was chosen as the second bellwether trial in the federal Vioxx multidistrict litigation, and on August 17, 2006 a New Orleans jury found Merck had negligently failed to warn his doctors of the drug's risks and had concealed information about those risks, awarding him $50 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. The trial judge found the compensatory award excessive and ordered a new trial unless Barnett accepted a reduced award; Barnett accepted a remittitur of $1.6 million on June 20, 2007, and judgment was entered in that amount on June 28, 2007. Merck reported that it appealed that judgment, and no decision resolving the appeal has been published.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
