Bruce A. Broillet

EL SEGUNDO - Bruce A. Broillet is a nationally recognized plaintiffs' attorney famous for achieving a $55 million verdict for a sportscaster spied upon in her hotel room while nude and the $3.3 billion settlement in the tobacco litigation for Los Angeles County.

Last month, he settled a wrongful death and medical malpractice action for a confidential amount against Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on behalf of the family of TV and movie star Bill Paxton, who died of a stroke just days after heart surgery. Paxton v. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, BC693636 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Feb. 9, 2018).

This spring, he achieved a $9.5 million settlement from the Los Angeles Unified School District in a high-profile lawsuit alleging a school dawdled in aiding or even calling 911 for a 10-year-old boy who collapsed and died after running laps in the heat. Alagba v. Los Angeles Unified School District, 19STCV10897 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed March 29, 2019).

"We're happy to get this case resolved for [the parents] in a favorable way, but in these cases, you wish that the thing had never happened in the first place," Broillet said. He added that he hopes the district will "up their game" and provide better training on dealing with medical emergencies.

"I believe and the family hopes that the school district will take this very seriously for all of the children and the adults that are on these campuses," Broillet said.

Now, he is working on a new case involving a horrific automobile accident that left one man dead and another brain damaged. The two men, both high-earning executives, were completely stopped in traffic in a freeway HOV lane when a Ford pickup slammed into them at high speed.

Their Mercedes was crushed. "You look at the pictures, and you say, 'Where's the rest of the car?'"

Data from the Mercedes' black box shows that it had been stationary for at least five seconds at the time of impact. Data from the truck shows the driver was traveling at 63 miles per hour until a third of a second before impact when he finally hit the brakes. Singh v. Sunbelt Rentals, 19CV342353 (S. Clara Super. Ct., filed June 11, 2019).

"A lot of the technology that's available these days ... can be very helpful in determining what happened" in accidents, he said. "We're seeing it over and over."