Jennifer L. Meeker

Litigation

Los Angeles

Jennifer Meeker's passion for appellate law was ignited during her second year of law school while clerking for an appellate defense lawyer in San Diego.

After graduating in 2008, she joined a litigation boutique firm and later moved to Nossaman in 2012 as a commercial litigator.

In 2017, she pivoted her focus to appeals, while maintaining her litigation practice at the trial court level.

"What drew me to appellate law initially was the challenges presented by the varied and complex legal issues presented in appeals as well as the opportunity to shape law based on real-life issues faced by my clients," Meeker said. "It does not hurt that I love written advocacy."

Her notable work includes the Ninth Circuit published opinion in Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency v. Whittaker Corporation, which preserved a nearly $70 million jury verdict for her client.

This case was pivotal in safeguarding the water supply for hundreds of thousands of residents in Santa Clarita Valley, California. The jury found that the defendant's extensive contamination of groundwater with perchlorate and volatile organic compounds warranted tort damages.

"The ruling established that the costs of implementing groundwater treatment for the contamination caused by defendant Whittaker Corporation was the appropriate measure of damage under a number of common law counts, including negligence and nuisance," Meeker said.

In addition, the court also granted relief under a cross-appeal filed by SCVWA, finding Whittaker liable for certain response costs pursuant to CERCLA for purchased water and that SCVWA was entitled to declaratory relief for qualifying future response costs.

In a separate matter last September, the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) water rights litigation settled a decades-long dispute raised by a group of farmers in the Imperial Valley over the ownership of several million-acre feet of present perfected water rights to the Colorado River water vested in IID.

Meeker successfully petitioned U.S. District Judge Michael M. Anello to "dismiss the case on the grounds that [plaintiff's] allegations had already been decided in 2020, when the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that Abatti and other Imperial Valley farmers do not own the water, but instead have a right to continued water service."

The trial court was ultimately reversed in Abatti v. Imperial Irrigation Dist., 52 Cal. App. 5th 236, 266 Cal. Rptr. 3d 26 (Cal. Ct. App. 2020). Both the California Supreme Court and United States Supreme Court denied review of the 104-page published decision holding that the Imperial Valley farmers do not own the water rights, but instead have a right to continued water service that can be modified in IID's board's discretion.

In late 2022, a group of farmers again tried to challenge IID's water rights -- this time in federal court. Meeker successfully petitioned U.S. District Judge Michael M. Anello to dismiss the case at the pleading stage -- without leave to amend -- based on res judicata.