Christine D. Spagnoli

For any mode of transportation, Spagnoli is likely representing a plaintiff or searching for a gap in a company's safety standards.

In February, she won a $4 million verdict in Los Angeles County Superior Court representing the parents of a 24-year-old who died after he fell out of a party bus. Saraceno v. Hyros Corp. et. al., BC537162 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Feb. 21, 2014)

The wrongful death, negligence and product liability case alleged Hyros Corp. had not kept up with safety requirements for its limousines. But it was challenging to put together the technical reasons the door on the car was faulty.

Plaintiff attorneys could not inspect the bus for more than a year after the incident, after criminal proceedings ended.

"We had some idea of what might have happened but we couldn't get a look at it," Spagnoli said. "It came down to some really specific forensic evidence about how the door had been" dysfunctional.

At the end of 2015, Spagnoli also settled a wrongful death case for an undisclosed amount against Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., which sold a motorhome in which three people burned to death.

"That was a really horrible case, and it was a real battle because when there's a fire it's challenging to reconstruct what happened," Spagnoli said.

The manufacturer of the vehicle had gone out of business several years before, and Goodyear argued it was not responsible for constructing the home, which had a problematic design for its emergency exit window and fuel tank, Spagnolis said. Lowry v. Goodyear, et. al. RS1400607 (San Bern. Super. Ct., filed Feb. 3, 2014)

"For these issues of construction... we were left with all these individual defendants saying, 'We just did what [the manufacturer] told us to do," Spagnoli said. "We had so many parties and so many defendants, it was like herding cats."

Spagnoli said she is happy to help get compensation for families after a tragic accident but that her ultimate goal is bigger; she wants to effect change.

"Few people get to see what goes on inside a manufacturer's decision-making process in black and white," she said. "These cases are really rewarding in that you've got a cause. You're doing something to wake up a corporation."

- Amanda Schallert