Molly M. McKibben

McKibben is a Greene Broillet & Wheeler partner focused on resolving personal injury, wrongful death and products liability matters for clients.

She's been working from home since mid-March. "I got tested and went to visit family in Placer County near Sacramento," she said. "The numbers [of Covid-19 infections] aren't what they are in L.A. I had a socially distanced nine holes of golf."

Over the last two years, McKibben settled for a confidential amount the case of a three-year-old girl whose parents sued after she slipped through a hotel railing and fell to her death. And she represented a young woman who sustained a brain injury in a moped versus automobile collision, coming away with a confidential seven-figure settlement.

In 2019 McKibben obtained a $1,150,000 verdict on behalf of a woman who required spinal surgery after she was injured in a crash that occurred when a limo driver pulled in front of her vehicle during rush hour traffic in Los Angeles. The woman, JoAnn MacKenzie, was driving westbound on Victory Boulevard in Van Nuys when a driver for A-List Limousine Service LLC took an unsafe shortcut across Victory using a residential side street.

In the ensuing collision, MacKenzie sustained injuries to her neck. After two years of conservative treatment, she had to have two disks in her spine replaced. She'll need future surgeries, and experts for both sides agreed she will have pain for the rest of her life. A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury found the limo service and its driver 85 percent at fault for the accident. MacKenzie v. A-List Limousine Service LLC, BC660851 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed May 12, 2017).

"We argued that it was clear who had the better opportunity to prevent an accident like this from happening: the guy who Evel Knievel'd across six lanes of traffic," McKibben said. "It helped that the jury really liked my client. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to make that connection with jurors."

To get to that point in the trial, McKibben performed the basics. "We went out to the scene with our accident reconstructionist," she said. "The limo driver was trying to cut through traffic. That's not a crime in L.A.--unless you endanger people with a daredevil move. The jury was out for two days, and that was nervewracking."

A feature of the case was that the trial judge, Norman P. Tarle, allowed jurors to ask questions. "They questioned almost every witness," McKibben said. "The judge had them put the questions in writing, then he'd vet them with us in chambers. There were some battles over which to allow, but I thought overall it was great. You see what jurors care about, and that helps you tailor your questions for the next witness."

-- John Roemer