Angela C. Agrusa

In the male-dominated field of consumer class actions, Agrusa, as Liner's head of litigation, represents major clients such as Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Omni Hotels & Resorts, WhiteWave Foods Co. and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which she guided through a $44 million settlement of a class action designed to repay customers overcharged on utility bills.

In 2014-2015 she was lead counsel for investor group California First LP in what was said to be the largest business litigation trial ongoing in the state. Her client sought to enforce a $2.3 billion contract with the state of California to buy and lease back 11 state buildings, a deal engineered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger but renounced by Gov. Jerry Brown. She emerged with a $24 million settlement for California First.

"It took four years to get to trial," Agrusa said. "Politics permeated the case, because of Gov. Brown's decision to breach a contract for policy reasons." Brown contended that leasing back the buildings would cost the state $6 billion more than would maintaining ownership over 35 years. The buildings in question included landmarks like the Ronald Reagan State Building in Los Angeles, the Attorney General Building in Sacramento and the Ronald M. George State Office Complex in San Francisco.

"I chose to try the case through cross-examination of three of their top government witnesses," she said of the trial's early stages just before Christmas 2014. "With just the first witness, it became clear to me that despite the long discovery period, there was some volume of documents that never did get turned over to us," including what might have been a key notebook the project director said he could not remember having handed to his lawyers. "It was an instinct I had." With court dark over the holidays, Agrusa found herself on Christmas Eve poring over the evidence she did have. When the trial resumed, "I raised the possibility of concealment with the court," she said. "I demanded the notebook, which led to the revelation that hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence were missing. It was a gotcha moment."

The San Francisco County Superior Court judge overseeing the trial agreed to bring in forensic auditors, but "rather than having a third party come in, the state decided to settle," Agrusa said, "even though there had never been a previous settlement proposal. Whether it was intentional or not, this was a case of the state acting as if it was above the law in its cavalier attitude toward document production."

John Roemer