R. Brent Wisner

Proven Verdicts
Managing Partner at Wisner Baum LLP
Los Angeles, CAAdmitted 2011

About R. Brent Wisner

Brent Wisner is the managing partner and lead trial attorney at Wisner Baum, where he handles complex and multidistrict litigation, class actions, toxic torts, and product liability cases. He has earned jury verdicts worth a combined $2.427 billion and helped negotiate settlements above $1 billion, all before turning 40, and is the youngest attorney in American history to win a multibillion dollar jury verdict. He served as trial co-lead counsel in Johnson v. Monsanto, the first Roundup cancer trial, which returned a $289.2 million verdict in 2018, and in Pilliod v. Monsanto, which returned a $2.055 billion verdict in 2019. He also helped release the Monsanto Papers, internal company documents that shaped the global debate over glyphosate. Brent serves in court appointed leadership roles in the Zantac, baby food, and Roundup litigations, and earned his J.D. and a master's in public policy from Georgetown before clerking for a federal judge in Honolulu.

Proven verdicts and settlements

$56.01 millionVerdictTop 20 of 2019 · #16

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.

Alameda County Superior Court, Oakland (Judge Winifred Y. Smith) · 2019Product LiabilityRead the full story →
$30.74 millionVerdict

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.

Alameda County Superior Court, Oakland (Judge Winifred Y. Smith) · 2019Product LiabilityRead the full story →
$20.51 millionVerdict

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.

San Francisco County Superior Court, San Francisco (Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos), Case No. CGC-16-550128 · 2018Product LiabilityRead the full story →
$3 millionVerdict

Stewart Dolin, a 57-year-old Reed Smith partner, was prescribed Paxil for anxiety in July 2010, had the prescription filled with generic paroxetine, and six days later stepped in front of a CTA train in downtown Chicago. His widow Wendy Dolin sued GlaxoSmithKline, which controlled the paroxetine label, for failing to warn of an adult suicide risk. After a five-week federal trial a Chicago jury awarded $3 million on April 20, 2017. The Seventh Circuit reversed in August 2018, holding the claim preempted because the FDA had rejected an adult-suicidality warning in 2007, and the Supreme Court denied review in 2019.

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Chicago (Judge William T. Hart) · 2017Product LiabilityRead the full story →

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.

Practice areas

Education

Georgetown University Law Center
J.D., 2010
University of California, Los Angeles
Undergraduate, 2005

Bar admissions & credentials

State Bar of California, admitted 2011
State Bar of District of Columbia, admitted 2021
State Bar of Pennsylvania, admitted 2024

Other attorneys at Wisner Baum LLP

View firm →

Proven verdicts and settlements from other Los Angeles firms

Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP
Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP
$1.2 billion · $4.9 Billion Verdict Over Chevy Malibu Fuel Tank Fire
Taylor & Ring, LLP
Taylor & Ring, LLP
$47.41 million · Road Rage Chase That Killed Torrance Teen Ends in $61.7 Million Jury Verdict
McGee Lerer Ogrin
McGee Lerer Ogrin
$122.5 Million Settlement for 124 Survivors of Police Activities League Volunteer Eric Uller
West Coast Trial Lawyers
West Coast Trial Lawyers
$13.1 million · Federal Jury Awards $13.1 Million to Parents of Man Shot in the Back by Riverside County Deputy
Wilshire Law Firm
Wilshire Law Firm
$35.3 Million Verdict for 81-Year-Old Backseat Passenger Rear-Ended by Tractor-Trailer on the 10 Freeway

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.