John C. Taylor

Sexual Abuse, Police Excessive Force & Personal Injury Litigation

Taylor has long been one of the top plaintiffs’ attorneys for victims of sexual abuse, police misconduct and catastrophic injuries.

Currently, he is representing four former students in a magnet program at one Los Angeles area high school who were abused by teachers some years ago. He also is representing four families of people shot and killed by police.

Over the last few years, Taylor brought in some sizeable settlements in other sorts of cases. He obtained a $950,000 settlement against a skilled nursing facility for depositing a diabetic man in L.A.’s Skid Row in a broken wheelchair without insulin or other supplies. Anderson vs. Avalon Villa Health Care LLC, 19STCV10862 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed March 29, 2019).

Also last year, he brought in a $5 million settlement for a woman raped by a supervisor who was training her to be a long-haul trucker. Doe v. CRST Expedited Inc., RIC1808034 (Riv. Super. Ct., filed May 4, 2018).

“CRST has had lawsuits against it around the country for the way in which they’ve treated women drivers,” Taylor said. “This driver, after being raped by the co-driver, then had to spend another day or two in the truck with him” driving back from Wyoming.

Taylor is set to try another rape case against the trucking company next year involving a driving instructor hired as a trainer despite his violent criminal record.

Among his pending police shooting cases is one in which Los Angeles Police Department officers allegedly shot at a fleeing felon as he ran into a Trader Joe’s market, killing instead the store’s assistant manager. Another is a federal civil rights suit against Orange County deputy sheriffs who allegedly shot a homeless Black man they had stopped for possible jaywalking.

Taylor also is pursuing four lawsuits against the Los Angeles Unified School District on behalf of women whose teachers molested as students in Grover Cleveland High School’s core magnet program in the 1990s and 2000s. “Those cases are very satisfying,” he said. “But the thing that’s the most striking … is the courage it takes for [the women] to come forward.”

– Don DeBenedictis