A senior partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Los Angeles office, Gary L. Justice joined the firm in 1979 and became a partner in 1987.  Mr. Justice graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from the University of Cincinnati in 1976 and received his law degree from Duke University in 1979, where he served on the Editorial Board of the Duke Law Journal and was elected to the Order of the Coif, an honor reserved for the top ten percent of the graduating class.

One of Mr. Justice's areas of concentration is products liability litigation.  He has handled a variety of such cases for numerous clients.  The products and substances involved have included asbestos, contaminated pet foods, silica, wood preserving and treating chemicals, film developing chemicals, medical devices (e.g. artificial heart valves, cannulas, surgical needles, surgical instruments, heart-lung machines, surgical gloves), prescription drugs, over the counter medications, various other chemical substances such as lead, mercury and industrial solvents, and various types of machinery, including automobiles and industrial machinery.

Mr. Justice is, or recently has been, national or regional coordinating counsel for the asbestos litigation of a number of companies.  For a number of years Mr. Justice was one of the primary counsel responsible for the handling, including trial, of over 3000 individually filed asbestos exposure cases pending in several states.  He was one of the lead attorneys in the jury trial of approximately five of these cases.  All resulted in either a defense verdict, a JNOV, or a settlement during trial for an amount approximating a waiver of costs.  These trial results enabled the client to settle the remaining cases very favorably.  The defense of these cases involved pioneering work in the state of the art and lack of specific product identification defenses.

He was also the lead attorney for a number of chemical manufacturers in hundreds of cases in which it was alleged that chemicals used in the development of movie film caused  personal injury and death to workers in that industry.

Mr. Justice is currently the worldwide Chair of the firm's Insurance and Reinsurance Practice Group.  For a number of years he was one of the primary attorneys in the firm who headed up the firm's representation of a major property and casualty insurer as its "bad faith" coordinating counsel in the ten western states.  Many of the underlying claims were product liability or toxic tort claims.  He is ranked, and his qualifications are discussed, in the California insurance litigation section of Chambers USA, America’s Leading Business Lawyers.

A current representation in the product liability arena as of 2008 is that of a pet food manufacturer in a number of class actions filed in both the United States and Canada in which it is alleged that the pet food in question was tainted with melamine found in an ingredient imported from China.  Mr. Justice is also currently one of the lead lawyers representing the same client in the defense of a series of actions brought by hundreds of homeowners neighboring one of its plants and who contend damage from odors allegedly produced by the plant.

Another recent representation was the handling, as one of a team of attorneys and English barristers, of a confidential arbitration in London in December of 2006.  The matter involved insurance coverage for a very large products liability claim and hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake.

Trial Experience

Mr. Justice handles all aspects of civil trial work and has tried a number of civil jury and non-jury cases to successful conclusion in courts in California, Washington and Nevada.  He estimates that during his 29 year legal career he has spent approximately a year in front of juries, and perhaps an equal amount of time in front of judges and arbitrators in bench trials and binding arbitrations.  The following are a few representative examples of Mr. Justices' trials in the toxic torts and related insurance fields:

• Logan v. Owens-Illinois -  This was a five-week jury trial in Los Angeles Superior Court co-tried by Mr. Justice and an attorney from another firm who shared first chair responsibility.  The case was an asbestos personal injury matter which initially resulted in a jury verdict against Mr. Justice's client.  The verdict was, however, overturned pursuant to a successful motion for new trial and judgment notwithstanding the verdict prepared and argued by Mr. Justice.  The plaintiff in this case was represented by Ronald Motley of the Ness, Motley firm of Barnwell, South Carolina, one of the leading asbestos  and toxic tort plaintiff trial lawyers in the country.
• Brown v. Codman & Shurtleff -  This was a three-week products liability/wrongful death jury trial in which Mr. Justice was the lead trial lawyer for defendant, the manufacturer of a medical device.  The trial ended with Mr. Justice's client being granted a motion for non-suit at the close of plaintiff's case in chief.
• Dupre et al. v. Travelers Casualty -  Mr. Justice tried this insurance "bad faith" jury case in Contra Costa County, California Superior Court.  The plaintiffs' home was severely damaged by a fire, and they made a homeowners insurance claim which was denied.  Mr. Justice then represented the carrier in the resulting "bad faith" and coverage lawsuit.  One of the primary reasons for the denial of the claim was the carrier's belief that the fire had been caused by the explosion of an illegal methamphetamine manufacturing laboratory in which one of the plaintiffs was involved.  The plaintiffs did not contest the cause of the fire, but claimed that they were not living in the house and that the laboratory was operated by a tenant without their knowledge.  They also argued that because there was no illegal acts exclusion in the policy, coverage would exist even if the insured had been involved in the methamphetamine operation.  Mr. Justice argued that a condition contained within the policy voided coverage as to all insureds if any insured made a material misrepresentation during the investigation of the claim.  His contention was that the plaintiffs misrepresented the cause of the fire to be a clothes dryer malfunction when they must have known the true cause to be a methamphetamine laboratory explosion, because one of them was running the laboratory.
  
  After a two and a half week trial, the jury returned a special verdict finding that any coverage was voided because one of the insureds had made material misrepresentations during the investigation of the claim.  The deliberations lasted only three and a half hours.  The plaintiffs subsequently agreed to withdraw all of their post-trial motions and not to file an appeal in exchange for having to pay only a portion of the defendant's costs bill.
• Wiser v. Saint Joseph Medical Center -  This was a four-week jury trial in which Mr. Justice was the only trial lawyer representing his client, the cross-complainant hospital in a personal injury action involving the misdiagnosis of a recurrence of cancer.  The case ended with a substantial jury verdict in favor of the hospital and against several physician cross-defendants.
• 1333 North California Boulevard v. Travelers – Mr. Justice took this case to trial in October of 2006 in San Mateo Superior Court as the lead trial attorney for his client, an insurance company.  The case involved alleged insurance bad faith.  The matter settled after all witnesses had been called, but before closing argument, on terms which the client considered exceptionally favorable.

In addition to his numerous trials and arbitrations in the toxic torts and insurance fields, Mr. Justice has considerable commercial litigation experience, including trial experience.  A representative example is the case of Trans-Sterling, Inc. v. The Palmieri Company, which resulted in a five week jury trial in Federal court in Las Vegas co-tried by Mr. Justice and another partner of the firm, and which ended with a directed verdict in favor of Mr. Justice’s client.  The client had been accused of fraud and misrepresentation in connection with the financing of several large hotel/casino properties located in Las Vegas.

Appellate Opinions

Mr. Justice represented an insurance carrier in the matter of Pilkington North America v. Travelers Casualty which resulted in a published opinion of the Ohio Supreme Court which may be found at 112 Ohio St. 3d 482 (2006).  Mr. Justice was the lead lawyer for his client on both the oral argument and briefing.  The case involved alleged environmental contamination at a number of glass manufacturing plants in the Midwestern United States.  A threshold issue in the case was the claimed right to coverage of the plaintiff corporation, which was never a named insured under the defendants' insurance policies, as a result of purchasing the glass manufacturing business of the named insured.  The named insured continues to exist, and to operate numerous other businesses.  Both the named insured and the company which purchased the glass business were making claims relating to the glass business against the insurers under the named insured's historic policies.  The case was considered by the Ohio Supreme Court based upon three specific questions of law certified by the United States District Judge before whom the case was pending.  The published Ohio Supreme Court opinion does not entirely answer the legal issue.  Prior to the publication of the opinion, the case was settled as to Mr. Justice's client pursuant to a confidential settlement which the client viewed as very favorable.

An additional area of concentration for Mr. Justice is land use litigation.  For instance, he was the lead attorney for the real party in interest, a Disney family trust, in the defense of the adequacy of the Environmental Impact Report (“EIR”) for the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which is now erected in downtown Los Angeles.  After a three month bench trial on the administrative record, the adequacy of the EIR was upheld in all respects.  The case resulted in an extensive unpublished appellate opinion which also upheld the adequacy of the EIR in all respects.