Robinson served a plaintiff's counsel in Orange County Superior Court in the case Perez v. City of Anaheim, where the parties reached a $15.93 million settlement in the case where Paulina Perez, an 11-year-old girl, was hit by a car while walking in a crosswalk through an intersection on her way to Juliette Low Elementary School to attend the school's early morning breakfast program. Perez suffered catastrophic and near fatal injuries. Robinson filed a lawsuit on her behalf, alleging that neither the city of Anaheim, the school district, nor the crossing guard company employed by the city provided crossing guards at the time of the accident, even though those entities knew children were arriving at school at that hour for the breakfast program.
"We took a larger number of depositions and really had a great group of experts," Robinson said. "We were right down to trial, but they settled it. The city of Anaheim and the other defendants did a good job, but I feel good for the client."
Due to the severity of the injury, Robinson said Perez has a diffuse axonal brain injury.
"I love that little girl," Robinson said. "She's got an incredible smile. I'll always remember that. She's almost like trapped in her injury because her mind is about 80 percent there. She gets it. That's the biggest problem."
Robinson has been a tenacious advocate for injured persons and consumers for the past four decades, devoting his life to obtaining justice for thousands of people across the country in individual personal injury cases, consumer class actions and mass tort litigation, as well as through his leadership in numerous federal multidistrict litigations and state-coordinated proceedings.
As a young lawyer, Robinson was working long hours yet he was able to coach his son's little league team and his daughter's softball team. Now, they're partners at his firm.
"I don't have any excuses," he said. "I'm working more now than ever."
A trial's coming up on July 3 in a case alleging women developed ovarian cancer as a result of using Johnson & Johnson Service Inc.'s talcum powder. This will be the first Johnson & Johnson talcum powder case to be tried in California. The parties are currently taking expert depositions and preparing pretrial briefing.
"Hopefully we can keep the discovery going," he said, referring to the more than 700 plaintiffs involved. "We're trying to make sure we take care of the rights of all these people."
In August, Robinson will serve as the plaintiff's executive committee in the GM ignition switch litigation.
"We're very busy," Robinson said about the firm. "We help each other. I do work with attorneys daily."
Robinson tells young lawyers they really have an obligation to work harder than one might if they had another 40-hour a week job.
"I've had those," he said. "You really have a higher duty to people. That's what I tell them, the millennials. They're different than the X and Y generation. They can actually teach us older lawyers something. They really have a focus on friends, family and having fun, and whatnot, but you have to balance it."
— Matthew Sanderson
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