Boris Treyzon

Encino

Catastrophic Personal Injury, Insurance Bad Faith & Business Litigation

Boris Treyzon is a founding partner and the lead trial attorney at Abir Cohen Treyzon Salo LLP. The 30-lawyer plaintiff-side boutique -- it goes by the acronym ACTS -- specializes in cases involving complex civil matters, catastrophic personal injury, insurance bad faith and business disputes.

His first case was an immigration matter. "It was tried in a courtroom inside a prison, and to the shock of everyone, I won. I found I really liked trial work, telling the story of your client in a classy way, respectful to the other side. It works better than bombast. Now I'm doing 10 to 14 trials a year. I keep pretty busy."

In 2021, Treyzon was named Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles.

He's currently prepping for a September trial for a woman who suffered a serious head injury in a motorcycle crash. Hasid et al. v. Suzuki Motor Corp. et al., BC640943 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Nov. 16, 2016).

"She was horribly injured, and our economic expert puts part of the losses at $40 million," Treyzon said. "This is a big mess-up on safety with the front brake master cylinder. A similar case in Orange County got a $160 million verdict, and I went to that trial. We'll see."

He's still working on a case in which he obtained a $73 million settlement in a breach of contract case for a class of former players of the defunct Alliance of American Football, a minor pro league that went bankrupt in 2019 after less than a season. In re Legendary Field Exhibitions LLC et al., 19-50900 (U.S. Bankruptcy Ct., W.D. Tex., filed April 17, 2019).

"We settled, and then the trustee turned around and appointed me special litigation counsel to obtain funds from the league's creditors to pay the settlement," Treyzon said. "We just got $55 million in the Southern District of New York, and the work goes on."

In a case where a falling eucalyptus tree damaged a swimming pool, damages were under a million dollars -- but the insurance company's refusal to pay sufficiently angered a jury that it awarded Treyzon's clients $5 million in punitives. It was the largest insurance bad faith punitive damages award in 2021, Treyzon said. Neman et al. v. State Farm General Ins. Co. et al., 2:19-cv-10104 (C.D. Cal., filed Nov. 26, 2019).

"Juries are the smartest truth machines since the invention of the polygraph," Treyzon said.

--John Roemer