| Aviation Accidents, Catastrophic Injury, Complex and Multi-District Litigation, Cruise Ship Accidents, Maritime Tort Law, Mass Disaster Litigation, Product Liability Law, Railroad Accidents, School Bus Accidents, Structural Collapses, Wrongful Death Law |
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 J. Clark Aristei has been practicing law for over 35 years. He is a senior partner at Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, where he oversees all of the firm’s commercial transportation disaster litigation stemming from aviation, bus, train, and truck accidents.
In most recent years, Clark has focused a significant part of his practice on two of the worst train disasters in recent history, personally representing 24 passengers who were injured or killed. He was liaison counsel for the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (PSC) overseeing all of the 2005 Metrolink Glendale, California crash cases, more than 110 cases. He is currently a member of the PSC for the 2008 Chatsworth, California Metrolink collision cases.
In addition to his leadership in recent train disaster litigation, Clark was on the PSC for the cases arising from the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 into the Pacific Ocean, near Pt. Mugu, California in 2000. Clark played a key role in obtaining the court’s ruling that maritime law provided the correct applicable law for the families of the victims. Without this win, the families would not have received proper compensation.
 Clark was also essential in obtaining U.S. jurisdiction for two foreign tour bus crashes in Cancun, Mexico and Kent, England, in which the firm represented 28 Americans injured or killed.
As designated plaintiffs' counsel in the Coordinated Discovery Cases for the Southwest Airlines Flight 1455 accident at Burbank, California in 2000, he successfully represented airline passengers injured in that crash. He was also on the trial team in 2003 that obtained an $8.5M verdict for his client in the 2001 Airborne Charter Inc./Avjet jet which crashed in Aspen, Colorado. He was also trial co-counsel in 2006 for the 1998 Bell Helicopter crash in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California in which his firm successfully represented the families of three paramedics who were killed in that crash.
In a case against Tyson Foods, Clark worked as co-trial counsel in 2006 for the family of an unmarried 22-year-old Marine, survived by his parents and a brother. The Marine was killed by a Tyson Foods truck near Crestline, Ohio in 2004. In that trial, the jury returned one of the largest verdicts of its type in Ohio’s history, $7,028,687 for pre-impact distress and wrongful death.
 From 1986 to 1997, Clark was an adjunct professor of law at the University of West Los Angeles School of Law. He has earned the highest 5.0 out of 5 AV® Peer Review Rating through Martindale Hubbell and the highest Avvo.com superb score of 10. He has been selected to Southern California Super Lawyers and is listed in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, and Who’s Who in American Law.
Clark is an avid cyclist. He has taken his bicycle to Europe to see and ride part of the race route of the Tour de France and the Giro d’ Italia. When he is not working, Clark and his wife, Caro Louise, operate Breezy Bluff Ranch in Escondido, California. They grow and market avocados, pomegranates, persimmons, figs, and citrus. They are active in the California Farm Bureau Federation, the California Avocado Commission, and the Escondido Historical Society. |
Born:
Education:
- Los Angeles Harbor College (A.A., 1968)
- California State University at Long Beach (B.A., cum laude, 1971)
- University of San Diego School of Law, San Diego, California (J.D., 1975)
- Recipient, American Jurisprudence Award in Constitutional Law (1973)
Admissions:
- California, 1975
- U.S. District Court, Southern District of California, 1975
- U.S. District Court, Central District of California, 1979
- U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California, 1993
- U.S. District Court, Northern District of New York, 1996
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, 1997
- U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, 2006
- U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Wisconsin, 2010
Member:
- State Bar of California
- Consumer Attorneys of California
- Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles
- Los Angeles County Bar Association
- California Farm Bureau Federation
- Co-Lead Plaintiffs' Counsel for the Coordinated Discovery Cases, Southwest Airlines Flight 1455 accident, Burbank, California, 2000
- Trial Team Member, 2003: Airborne Charter Inc./Avjet, Aspen, Colorado, 2001
- Plaintiffs' Liaison Counsel, Plaintiffs' Steering Committee Member, Glendale Metrolink Derailment Cases, Glendale, California, 2005
- Trial Co-Counsel, 2006; 1998 Bell Helicopter crash in Los Angeles, California
- Trial Co-Counsel, 2006; 2004 Tyson Foods truck crash near Crestline, Ohio
- Plaintiffs' Steering Committee Member, Chatsworth Metrolink Collision Cases, Chatsworth, California, 2008
Legal Teaching Position:
- Adjunct Professor of Law, University of West Los Angeles School of Law (1986-1997)
Lectures/Speeches:
- "Successful Handling of Wrongful Death Cases in California," Lorman Education Services, August 2001 and January 2002
Author:
- "Successful Handling of Wrongful Death Cases in California: Trying Your Case to Verdict or Settlement," Lorman Education Services, January, 2002
Awards and Honors:
Published Cases:
- Penner v. Falk
153 Cal. App. 3d 858, 200 Cal. Rptr. 661 (1984)
- Geffen v. County of Los Angeles
197 Cal. App. 3d 188, 242 Cal. Rptr. 492 (1987)
- Cheng v. United Airlines, Inc.
1995 WL 42157 (N.D. Ill. 1995) reconsideration denied by Cheng v. United Airlines, Inc. 1995 WL 314575 (N.D. Ill. 1995)
- In re Air Crash Off Point Mugu, California, on January 30, 2000
145 F.Supp.2d 1156 (N.D.Cal., 2001)
- McCoy v. Southwest Airlines Co., Inc.
211 F.R.D. 381 (C.D.Cal., 2002)
- McCoy v. Southwest Airlines Co., Inc.
208 F.R.D. 617 (C.D.Cal. 2002)
Practice Areas:
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