Elise R. Sanguinetti

Wrongful Death, Serious Injury & Jail Health Care Litigation

When Sanguinetti started out as a lawyer, she focused on auto product liability litigation. But after she launched her current firm seven years ago and then served as the 2018-19 president of the national trial lawyers bar, the American Association for Justice, she determined that having a diversified practice is important.

“It’s a wise business decision to have a wide area of practice,” she said. Handling a variety of case types keeps her sharp. “I think it makes the work much more interesting and gives me the opportunity to help more people.”

Currently, Sanguinetti represents the family of two men who died while flying in a helicopter that made contact with power lines in Solano County. She also represents survivors of a man who died in the crash of a small airplane allegedly caused by a defective carburetor.

She is litigating a medical malpractice case against the Children’s Hospital of Orange County for allegedly providing poor care to an infant born with jaundice. And she is pressing two separate wrongful death cases against Tesla, Inc.

But there is one type of case Sanguinetti is tackling in greater number. She is one of the few lawyers in the country who regularly sues jail systems on behalf of family members of inmates who died due to poor medical care or committed suicide in custody.

In April last year, she brought in a record-setting $2.375 million settlement for the family of an Alameda inmate who hanged himself at the Santa Rita Jail when he should have been under suicide watch. Masterson et al. v. County of Alameda, 3:19-cv-01625 (N.D. Cal., filed March 28, 2019).

This March, she brought a similar action against Monterey County for ignoring a new inmate’s serious psychological problems and allowing him to hang himself. Patino v. County of Monterey, 5:22-cv-01564 (N.D. Cal., filed March 11, 2022).

She lays much of the blame on Wellpath, the for-profit health care company that many jails and prisons now use, which she says often provides no or poor care to inmates. “It’s really becoming really clear that this is becoming a persistent problem across the nation,” Sanguinetti said.

– Don DeBenedictis