Below are some examples of cases we have prosecuted. At Stewart Humpherys & Molin, we have been winning cases like this since 1967 and look forward to working on your behalf.

We had the honor of representing an incredibly bright and talented young woman who had been seriously abused and molested as a minor. The suit was brought against the abuser (a family member) and the person who was to supervise her in her placement. The supervising adult was aware of the history of the abuser and placed her in that person’s care regardless.

The insurance company tried to settle for a minimum amount, but we were able to increase the settlement by 500% following a careful, thorough, and methodical pursuit of wrongdoers.

The result was $500,000 in excess of insurance coverage. The money helped this young woman go to college, get counseling, and start her adult life with less strife. She now has a professional career and a solid family.

A young couple who had been recently married was traveling south on Highway 99 from Chico towards Gridley. An oncoming driver who was a student worker for California State University, Chico, was very tired. She had worked all weekend helping students in a seminar. Her CSUC bosses asked her to drive some seminar participants to the Sacramento Airport, despite her telling them how exhausted she was.

She fell asleep at the wheel on her way home from the airport, crossing into oncoming traffic and into a field. The oncoming car swerved to miss her and hit my client’s car, killing the young wife as well as the elderly couple driving the oncoming car.

We obtained significant damages from the University for the young husband for his injury and the wrongful death of his wife for placing a driver on the road who should not have been there.

A local nurse had decided, along with her doctor, that it would be best to have her ovaries removed as a preventative measure due to family history of ovarian cancer. She went into a hospital for the surgery and was given anesthesia. The surgery was successful and she moved from recovery to a regular care room on the floor.

The medical staff missed a notation in her file that she was allergic to morphine and placed her on a morphine pump for pain control post-op. They did not use a pulse oxymeter to monitor the oxygen in her blood. Her family came to visit but she was sleepy so they left.

A short time later, when dinner was being delivered, the hospital personnel discovered she was not breathing because the morphine had depressed her respiratory function.

The medical staff revived her but by then she was brain damaged and in a persistent coma. She ended up in a vegetative state that lasted seven years before she passed away. The settlement provided for her care as well as for her two teenage daughters for college education and beyond, and for her husband who had lost his wife.

A young man earning his way through college obtained a temporary job in a rice receiving station. The station was of an old design and the rice silos funneled the rice to an auger at the bottom of the bin. While cleaning the bin, his foot slipped on the defective grate and into the auger. His left leg was cut off. We learned that the property was not owned by his employer and that it was in violation of numerous safety regulations, including the design of the auger.

Consequently, we were able to obtain a large award of both cash and a monthly income in addition to his worker’s compensation. He has retrained, completed his schooling, is fully employed in a job that accommodates his prosthetic leg, and leads a stable life.

Cathy Liu, a UC Davis Doctor, was struck by a car while in the crosswalk on Freeport Boulevard in Sacramento, CA. After a lengthy trial, jurors spent almost 3 days in deliberation to conclude that the city of Sacramento was mostly to blame for the accident, awarding her $18.2 million in damages.

While it was a long, exhausting case, we are pleased with the outcome. According to some city planners and Sacramento residents, this particular crosswalk was notoriously dangerous and unfortunately the city’s efforts to fix it were too little, too late. Read more about this case at the Chico Enterprise Record.

Three young men spent the day harvesting a marijuana crop while drinking beer and smoking their “weed” after some target practice. These three men loaded their 29 pounds of marijuana into a big diesel pickup and headed back to their base for further processing of their crop.

On the way, they were seen speeding, weaving in and out of traffic, and passing dangerously. During one of the passes, they crossed over into oncoming traffic and collided with a car driven by our client, his fiancée, and her two children, who were returning from church services.

The defendants killed all the occupants except one of the boys. We sued the driver of the “pot truck” and those who were engaged in their marijuana growing enterprise.

Our client, the mother of the driver killed in the accident, was very ill. Her son personally took care of her and supported her financially.

The case concluded as to all the defendants with a payment of all money that was available totaling $1,000,000. The defendant driver looks at many decades in prison.

While we are grateful that we were able to help this family through this tragedy, we are hopeful that we have helped send a message to impaired drivers that they will be held accountable for their acts and that we will pursue all those involved in their growing enterprises to compensate our clients for the harm and devastation they have caused. We hope this will serve as a deterrent to similar conduct.

The government had a teenager it wanted to place in a foster home. In doing so, the authorities avoided informing the foster family that he had a known history of sexual assaults on children and was then under the authority of the juvenile court for drug use. The government was required to make these disclosures but covered them up.

The foster family had a young child and had specifically said they would not take a foster child with a sexual history. The teenager was placed without telling the parents. Within a short time, he began sexually assaulting the child. The assaults were eventually discovered, and the teenager prosecuted. The government avoided responsibility for the problem, covered up the facts, and did not provide counseling for the child. A few years later, the family learned of the underlying facts and deceit by the government.

The government insisted that a lawsuit be filed before they would become accountable for their acts. After a vigorous battle and evidence of the cover-up being forced out of the defendants, the matter settled for a large sum which will provide some relief for the child to get competent counseling and to pay for higher education. Bringing this conduct to light may force those who deal with our children to act responsibly and may save children in the future from this type of lifetime damage.

For privacy reasons, the names of those involved have not been disclosed.

An 83-year-old mother and grandmother was placed in a nursing home for care and monitoring of her heart condition. She was to be treated with a blood thinning drug. Her doctor ordered that her blood be tested at least each month to see if it was too thin and would cause her to bleed.

The nursing home was aware that the mother was at a high risk for falling and promised to be careful with her. Within a few months, while unsupervised, the mother fell at the facility. She soon showed substantial bruising about her head, face, and shoulder. Medical attention was delayed for almost two days. She was finally taken to the hospital, where she died of bleeding in her brain.

We proved the nursing home was neglectful because it did not follow the doctor’s orders and often neglected to conduct the blood tests which were to determine whether or not her blood was too thin. We proved her blood had become incapable of clotting, as the nursing home had been warned numerous times before by the pharmacist. We further showed that the thinning of the blood was a cause of her brain bleed and death. As a result, the nursing home paid a substantial sum to the children and grandchild.

We were assured that this lawsuit encouraged the facility to change its policies and procedures to prevent similar abuse of seniors in the future.