Amy Zeman

A litigation partner at Gibbs Law, Zeman has obtained positive results for consumers and sexual assault survivors in class action and mass tort litigation.

One major outcome was a $73 million settlement with UCLA over class action claims regarding the misconduct of a consulting gynecologist at the school who has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of sexual assault on former patients. A.B. v. The Regents of the University of California, 2:20-cv-09555 (C.D. Cal., filed Oct. 19, 2020).

That was in November 2020. By late May 2021, Zeman was in trial in San Francisco in another emotionally difficult case for her clients, patients whose cryogenically preserved eggs and embryos were destroyed when a vacuum-insulated liquid nitrogen storage tank failed at a reproductive medicine clinic in March 2018. In re: Pacific Fertility Center Litigation, 3:18-cv-01586 (N.D. Cal., filed March 13, 2018).

“We just sat a jury yesterday and we’re off to the races,” Zeman said as the trial got underway before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline S. Corley. “We’re pretty happy with the panel.”

She leads the Gibbs team directing and prosecuting the claims of some 600 plaintiffs amid a complexity of procedural challenges, including navigating the interaction of simultaneous federal, state and individual arbitration cases and legal claims ranging from negligence and product liability to fraud. After a year and a half of litigation, the suit pivoted from a class action to a mass tort approach as claims against some of the defendants were compelled to arbitration.

In the current trial, Zeman seeks to hold accountable the tank manufacturer, a leading supplier of cryogenic containers named Chart Inc., whose “Tank 4” at Pacific Fertility failed and lost nearly all of its liquid nitrogen, exposing the eggs and embryos it held to an uncontrolled rise in temperature that destroyed them.

When another of Chart’s tanks—this one at a hospital in London—similarly lost all liquid nitrogen, Chart’s authorized dealer wrote, “Wow, I have never seen this before…. This is very serious and we don’t want this to get around,” according to Zeman’s trial brief.

In March, the judge denied Chart’s summary judgment motion, despite the defendant’s argument that Zeman had failed to provide sufficient expert opinion to back up the plaintiffs’ claims. The judge also rejected Chart’s contention that the reasons for the tank’s failure were technical and “beyond the ken of an ordinary juror.”

That defense setback “buoyed” the plaintiffs, Zeman said. She added that the case will focus in large part on expert testimony. “The defendant would like you to believe it’s complex, but we have a simple and concise story to tell.” Still, she acknowledged that things could get confusing. “There are engineers involved,” she noted.

— John Roemer