Roger A. Dreyer

Dreyer won highly publicized jury verdicts of $16.7 million for the family of Jennifer Strange in her 2007 water intoxication radio contest death and more than $70 million from Ford Motor Co. in a 2011 wrongful death case over defects in Goodyear tires combined with Ford's E-350 van.

Now it's peanuts. In Dreyer's current wrongful death case, 13-year-old twin Natalie Giorgi died in 2013 from anaphylactic shock after eating peanut butter mixed into a Rice Krispies treat at Camp Sacramento, a city-run summer retreat near Lake Tahoe, despite warnings from her parents that she and her sister were allergic to peanuts and its by-products. Trial is set for Sept. 26. Dreyer represents the decedent's parents. Giorgi v. City of Sacramento, 34-2014-00162222 (Sacramento Super. Ct., filed May 18, 2014)

"It's a fabulously tragic case, and we hope to use it to effect change in the way people think about peanut allergies," Dreyer said. Compounding the tragedy was the presence of the girl's parents, who watched as Giorgi slipped into shock. Her father, a surgeon, shattered the glass on a medicine storage cabinet to obtain the antidote epinephrine, injuring his arm and leaving him unable to perform surgery. The girl died in her mother's arms, according to Dreyer and the complaint he drafted.

"This cascade of disasters is bringing home to people that peanut allergies are not something to screw around with," Dreyer said. "There has been a level of cynicism about it. People pooh-pooh it. But it has torched this family." Later in 2013, President Barack Obama signed a measure offering financial incentives to states that enable schools to stock emergency epinephrine devices. He disclosed that daughter Malia has a peanut allergy.

Dreyer said the city's defense has been predictable. "They blame the parents, say they should have been more vigilant. They say the father's injuries were not foreseeable, and they are petitioning for summary judgment to get him out of the case. You've got to be kidding - any father would do what he did when the camp personnel could not find the key to the cabinet with the antidote."

He added that he has gotten nowhere with the city's insurers. "They never want to negotiate fairly pretrial," he said of American International Group Inc., or AIG. "They always try to settle inexpensively. They are particularly difficult, and you have to be in trial before they realize you are serious. But we have 27 lawyers here in my firm and all we do is try cases. We go toe-to-toe with anyone."

- John Roemer