Personal Injury/Torts
Deborah A. David, Esq. has been a JAMS Neutral since 2000, following a successful career as a defense lawyer and plaintiffs’ lawyer in a large variety of matters. In late 2002, she moved to London, England and continued her career mediating tort and personal injury matters and teaching conflict resolution in the US, UK, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. In late 2016, she returned to live and work in Southern California.
She has investigated, evaluated, represented parties and settled over a thousand personal injury claims of all types; she has extensive experience mediating such claims. She is uniquely qualified to quickly recognize the major issues and resolve the case. Ms. David believes that every party should have the chance to settle their case without the stress of trial, and that a patient mediator, willing to work however long it takes to get the job done, is essential to successful resolution.
Representative Matters
- Personal Injury
- UK-based group action brought by hotel guests against a European resort hotel claiming intestinal illness brought by alleged pool contamination
- Claim by a UK citizen and resident that he sustained serious injuries in an accident in the US when the American-made all-terrain vehicle in which he was a passenger flipped
- Claim that negligent behavior on a golf course caused severe brain injury when the claimant was hit by an errant ball—incident took place in Asia
- Work-related on-the-job injuries
- Auto vs. Auto and Auto vs. Pedestrian injuries
- UM and UIM claims
- Construction site injuries
- Burn injury claims
- Inadequate security resulting in injury
- Premises liability claims including slip and fall claims and claims of inadequate security resulting in injury
- Wrongful death claims against police department
- Alleged attack by a security guard
- Aviation claims including mass disaster and commercial aircraft crashes, claims under the Warsaw Convention and Federal Tort Claims Act, pilot and/or controller error, and in-flight injury claims
- Medical Malpractice
- Wrongful death claim arising out of alleged mismanagement of adult patient with spina bifida
- Claim of negligent failure to recognize and act upon findings of glaucoma
- Claimed negligent management of labor resulting in spastic quadriplegia
- Admitted liability case arising out of a relationship formed by a mental health care provider with his patient
- Alleged Emergency Room failures to diagnose and treat appendicitis, heart attack, CVAs and stroke, and orthopedic injuries
- Anesthetic mismanagement allegedly causing massive brain injury
- Alleged improper positioning of patient during surgery causing compartment syndrome
- Birth and intrauterine injury claims
- Catastrophic injuries due to alleged improperly performed surgery
- Claimed physician failures to diagnose and treat pre-eclampsia, post-caesarean endocarditis, arterial injury, life-threatening infection, variety of cancers, and acute bacterial and fungal meningitis
- Claimed failures to administer medications, and/or overmedication
- Claims of failure to order appropriate diagnostics
- Claims of negligent prescription of medication to minor causing severe brain injury
- Cosmetic surgical claims
- Intraoperative anesthetic mismanagement purportedly causing massive brain injury
- Claims of nursing home staff failure to follow physicians' orders and /or call in physician when necessary
- Convalescent home management of patient involving decubitus ulcers and malnutrition
- Products Liability
- Adequacy of warnings and instructions involving a variety of consumer products
- Automobiles
- Airbag deployment
- Crashworthiness including excessive roof crush
- Ergonomics relating to pedal placement
- Rollovers including Ford/Firestone roll-over cases
- Seat belt failure
- Tire failure due to mismatching
- Unintended acceleration
- Aviation
- Wrongful death and personal injury claims due to manufacturing and design defects, or maintenance errors in fixed-wing and rotor aircraft
- Adequacy of tail design
- Flutter
- Failure of life-limited parts
- Engine failures
- Medical devices and drug products
- Blood product contamination with HIV and Hepatitis
- Implants
- Prescription medication side-effects, adverse reactions and dosage
- Vaccines
- Intrauterine devises
- Other
- Asbestos claims
- Suits involving components manufactured by government contractors for use in classified applications
