Schwebel, Goetz & Sieben, P.A.

William Sieben of Schwebel, Goetz & Sieben co-led a class of approximately 100,000 current and former Minnesota Walmart employees whose wage-and-hour claims resulted in a $54.25 million settlement after a judge found more than two million violations of state labor law.

James Schwebel represented 34 victims in a three-year lawsuit against engineering firm URS Corp, whose negligent inspection of the Minneapolis I-35W bridge preceded its August 2007 collapse, killing 13 people and injuring 145 others.

A six-week Anoka County trial ended with a $24 million jury verdict against BNSF Railway after four young people died at a malfunctioning Ferry Street grade crossing in September 2003.

A Hennepin County jury awarded $5.33 million after a Metro Transit bus driver closed the doors and pulled away while Christopher Swickard was approaching, causing the rear wheels to run over him and require amputation of his left leg below the knee.

Following a $24 million wrongful-death jury verdict, Anoka County District Court Judge Ellen Maas imposed more than $4.2 million in additional sanctions against BNSF Railway for destroying evidence, fabricating records, and obstructing the investigation of a crash that killed four young people.

After Galaxy Airlines Flight 203 crashed on takeoff from Reno killing 70 of 71 aboard in January 1985, James Schwebel of Schwebel, Goetz, Sieben and Hanson served as counsel to the court-appointed Plaintiffs' Liability Committee, which coordinated liability discovery on behalf of all plaintiffs and was entitled to a percentage of each individual settlement.

After a Federal Signal flasher on a Minneapolis police van disabled the brake-shift interlock and the van surged into a Holidazzle Parade crowd, killing two and injuring nine, James R. Schwebel and James S. Ballentine of Schwebel, Goetz and Sieben won a precedent-setting appeal holding that a self-insured municipality must pay no-fault benefits independent of the municipal tort liability cap.