Jennifer L. Keller

When asked how she enjoys a high success rate in prominent trial litigation, Keller’s answer was simple.

“It helps to be right,” she said.

In the case of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., that meant showing that insurance holders were appropriately warned they were unlikely to see dividends their lawsuit claimed they were owed. The bellwether case was one of few class actions that went to trial. Fewer still end up with a complete defense verdict, as this one did.

“I think in many cases lawyers who do class actions don’t really give jury trial a serious thought. They feel the whole battle is class certification,” she said. “Once they lose that, they give up and they fold, but that should be just the beginning of the analysis.”

Assisted by Sidley Austin LLP partner Sean A. Commons, Keller beat the suit, estimated at $40 million. Chavez v. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., BC435321 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed April 7, 2010).

“We thought we took a pretty common sense approach. The plaintiffs wanted to use unrelated policies to argue these holders should have gotten a cut of those earnings, and that made no sense to the jurors or to us,” she said.

In another lawsuit, Keller defended the city of Costa Mesa against a case brought by sober living home operators. Other cities had capitulated to similar lawsuits, but Keller took this one to trial and scored another complete victory, along with firm partner Jesse Gessin.

She said the operators’ homes were rife with fire code violations and subpar food among other problems, showing the lawsuit was an effort to use disabled persons’ protection law to maximize profits. Yellowstone Women’s First Step House Inc. et. al. v. City of Costa Mesa, 14-CV01852 (C.D. Cal., filed Nov. 20, 2014).

“They wanted to equate the businesses themselves with the rights of those living there. The FHA and the ADA protect people, not businesses. They don’t give you the ability to treat people poorly,” she said.

“The city council never really forgot that it owed a duty to everybody — the recovering addicts, and also to the people in the neighborhoods,” she said, adding the case let the city set the story straight and show home operators were overpacking their properties, rather than the city mistreating disadvantaged people.

“We thought, ‘Wow they did everything right. Why should they be under the gun here?’” she said. “Lawyers have an obligation to only take on those cases they believe to be meritorious in civil cases, and we were very proud to represent them as well.”

— Andy Serbe