Innovative & Successful Trial Attorneys
At Matheny Sears Linkert & Jaime, LLP we take pride in our reputation as innovative and successful trial attorneys with decades of litigation experience. We are trial attorneys who actually try cases. The two named partners have been elected as members of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) and many of our other attorneys have first-chaired their own trials. We have earned a statewide reputation for
effective defense strategies that produce favorable resolutions, including dispositive motion and favorable settlements. If a case has to be tried, we are fully prepared to take the case to a jury-even on short notice and are proud of our track record.
Defending Catastrophic Exposure Cases Throughout California
We take pride in being a boutique trial firm capable of defending catastrophic exposure cases in a variety of scenarios that include personal injuries, products liability, transportation and trucking, premises liability, wildfire litigation, public entity (dangerous condition and sexual abuse), major construction defect cases, and employment litigation. Our ability to hold down damages using innovative litigation resolution strategies, effective dispositive motions, and trial spans the last 40 years. We are also proud of our record of defense verdicts in difficult cases.
Cases of Interest
I.C. v. Compton Unified School District Cal. Ct. App., Jan. 15, 2025, No. B322148 California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division 8.
“The standard of care imposed upon school personnel in carrying out this duty to supervise is identical to that required in the performance of their other duties. This uniform standard to which they are held is that degree of care which a person of ordinary prudence, charged with [comparable] duties, would exercise under the same circumstances.” C.A. v. William S. Hart Union High School Dist. (2012) 53 Cal.4th 861, 869.)
READ MOREGee v. National Collegiate Athletic Association Cal. Ct. App., Dec. 24, 2024, No. B327691 California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division 8.
The assumption of the risk doctrine applies to plaintiffs injured by an inherent risk of a sport, irrespective of whether the specific injury itself was inherent to the sport.
What is inherent is determined by the conduct or condition necessary to engage in the sport.
READ MOREGorobets v. Jaguar Land Rover North America 326 Cal.Rptr.3d 309 Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2, California.
A § 998 offer must be sufficiently certain, specific, or definite in its terms and conditions. An offer is sufficiently certain only if:
- Its terms and conditions are sufficiently certain that the offeree—at the time the offer is made—can evaluate the worth of the offer and make a reasoned decision whether to accept that offer and
- Its terms and conditions are sufficiently certain that the trial court—at the time the case is resolved—can determine whether the judgment is more favorable than the offer.
Burdens of Proof
The 998 offeror bears the burden of demonstration its offer was sufficiently certain and unconditional with any ambiguities strictly construed against the offeror.
The 998 offeree bears the burden of demonstrating the offer was not made in good faith.
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