Deborah Chang

Personal Injury & Catastrophic Injuries

Chang foresees a very busy year ahead for her and her law firms. “We have… maybe eight major trials going this year, which is great,” she said.

She has long been highly respected as a plaintiffs’ trial lawyer, so much so that she served last year as the president of the Consumer Attorneys of California and this year as the president of the American Board of Trial Advocates’ Los Angeles chapter.

And recently, she and her colleagues have been asked to step in when cases are close to trial. “It seems like lately people call us when trial is coming up and ask us to take over,” she said.

Chang was set to begin trial in May in just such a case, representing a family seriously injured on an amusement park log ride. As they were beginning the steepest drop on the generally leisurely ride, the water pumped failed and “the water drained literally like a toilet in seconds,” she said.

With nothing to slow the log’s slide, it flew off the track. “The mother was launched in the air and fell into a nearby pond,” she said. “She literally broke every bone in her face.”

The amusement park has been litigating the case vigorously, but Chang says res ipsa loquitur is on her side “because log rides are not supposed to fly through the air.” Ebers v. Festival Fun Parks, RIC1903383 (Riv. Super. Ct., filed June 17, 2019).

Chang Klein took over another serious injury case on behalf of an amateur race car driver who missed a turn at the Laguna Seca Raceway and crashed into a sandbag improperly left behind in case of winter rains. The liability phase of the case was tried to the judge because jurors balked at serving after learning court personnel would not be wearing masks. Kim v. County of Monterey, 16CV001236 (Monterey Super. Ct., filed April 27, 2016).

Chang is very pleased that many of the attorneys who sent cases to her two women-led law firms are men. “It shows that what we set out to do is achievable, that women can do it, women should do it and that we are doing it,” she said.

– Don DeBenedictis