Similar personal injury attorneys in Los Angeles
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
About Pedram Esfandiary
Pedram Esfandiary is a partner at Wisner Baum's Los Angeles office, focusing on toxic tort injuries, pharmaceutical drug liability, class actions, and consumer fraud litigation. Promoted in March 2023, he is the youngest lawyer to earn partner at the firm. Pedram was part of the trial teams for all three Roundup cancer verdicts against Monsanto: the $289.2 million Johnson verdict in 2018, the $80 million Hardeman verdict, and the $2.055 billion Pilliod verdict in 2019. He now leads the firm's toxic baby food litigation and sits on the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee for the Baby Food Products Liability MDL.
He also co-led the trial team that won an $11.8 million police misconduct verdict against the LAPD. Educated at the University of Birmingham and Nottingham Trent University in the UK, he earned an LL.M from USC Gould School of Law and has spoken at UCLA and Yale law schools about the Monsanto litigation. He speaks Farsi.
Proven verdicts and settlements
Alberta Pilliod, a retired teacher and school administrator from Livermore, sprayed Roundup on the couple's properties for nearly 30 years and was diagnosed in April 2015 with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in her central nervous system, which recurred in her brain in 2016. On May 13, 2019, an Alameda County jury awarded her about $37.2 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages, alongside a separate award to her husband. Judge Winifred Smith reduced her judgment to $56,005,830, the Court of Appeal affirmed in August 2021, and the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court both declined to disturb it.
Alva Pilliod mixed and sprayed Roundup on the family's Livermore-area properties from 1982 until illness stopped him in 2011, the year he was diagnosed at 69 with stage IV diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in his bones. On May 13, 2019, an Alameda County jury awarded him about $18 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages, alongside a separate award to his wife. Judge Winifred Smith reduced his judgment to $30,736,480, the Court of Appeal affirmed in August 2021, and the California and U.S. Supreme Courts declined review.
Dewayne "Lee" Johnson sprayed Monsanto's Ranger Pro and Roundup Pro on Benicia school grounds for two to three years, was soaked by a burst hose in 2014, and was diagnosed that October with mycosis fungoides, a rare non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. In August 2018 a San Francisco jury found Monsanto liable for failure to warn and design defect and returned $289.25 million, the first Roundup cancer verdict in the country. The trial judge cut punitive damages to match compensatory damages, for $78.5 million, and the Court of Appeal in July 2020 reduced the award to $20.5 million while affirming liability and malice. The California Supreme Court denied review in October 2020 and Bayer paid the judgment late that year.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
Practice areas
Education
Bar admissions & credentials
Other attorneys at Wisner Baum LLP
View firm →Proven verdicts and settlements from other Los Angeles firms
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.









