Elizabeth J. Cabraser

In a tale of two titans, Cabraser has been a key player in the high-stakes litigation that has been swirling around Toyota Motor Corp. and BP plc.

In May, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana granted preliminary approval to a class-action settlement with BP, the oil company that spilled millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Final action is expected in November. In Re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the Gulf of Mexico, MDL 2179 (E.D. La., filed May 6, 2010).

She serves on a 19-member federal steering committee that negotiated the settlement.

"It will be the biggest private settlement in U.S. history if it holds," Cabraser said.

Negotiating the agreement took about a year.

"It was intensive and extremely detailed because of the nature of the damages," Cabraser said. "People working on the Gulf Coast felt the economic impact, and translating that into something that would be transparent and a fair system for demonstrating the damages for compensation was a huge challenge."

Those harmed included a cross-section of interests.

"The seafood industry has a different business model than, say, a tourist-oriented business," she said. "We had to work with experts and members of the class and get a feel for how these businesses worked in good times in order to demonstrate loss resulting from the Deep Horizon disaster."

No one had done that before, Cabraser said.

Meanwhile, she is one of the co-lead counsel representing the plaintiffs in Toyota's sudden unintended acceleration multidistrict litigation. In Re: Toyota Motor Corp. Unintended Acceleration Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2151 (C.D. Cal., filed Feb. 4, 2010).

They are involved in the wrongful death and personal injury claims and are now evaluating which ones would make the best test cases.

"The hope is that we can learn enough from trying a few cases so that we don't have to try all of them," she said. "We don't want to spend a lot of time and money and make people wait while we do this over and over again."

It's also beneficial for the defendants, Cabraser added.

"Companies don't want to see these cases drag on and on, either."

- PAT BRODERICK