Litigation
Jun. 15, 2002
Big Tobacco's Nemesis
Top 30 Women Litigators - Madelyn Chaber - Not long after blazing a trail in California tobacco litigation, San Francisco attorney Madelyn Chaber planned to wind down her practice.
Madelyn Chaber
Not long after blazing a trail in California tobacco litigation, San Francisco attorney Madelyn Chaber planned to wind down her practice.
Easier said than done, the 52-year-old realizes now.
"It's not exactly what I call retirement," Chaber, of-counsel at the Wartnick Law Firm, says.
In 2000, she stopped litigating full time. But many of her days still are spent fighting her old nemesis, the cigarette industry.
In May, Chaber argued before the state's highest court on whether a 1998 amendment to Civil Code Section 1714.45 was retroactive. She previously had used that law to great effect to introduce many industry-generated documents from the 1990s to allegedly show that Philip Morris targeted its marketing at young people and concealed the dangers of cigarettes for decades.
As a result, Chaber won a $51.5 million verdict against the company, the largest award of its kind at the time. Henley v. Philip Morris, 995172 (San Francisco Super. Ct., Feb. 10, 1999). The trial judge later reduced the amount to $26.5 million.
She followed that victory with a $21.7 million verdict on behalf of another smoker. Whiteley v. Raybestos-Manhattan, 303184 (San Francisco Super. Ct., May 25, 2000).
Her blockbuster cases twice earned her the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association's top litigator honor, both in 1999 and 2001. She also is one of the few California women admitted to the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Tragically, her husband died of cancer soon after she formally retired in July 2000, leaving her with a 101/2-year-old son.
"He's the focus of my life," Chaber says. "That and a very obsessive border collie who wants to play ball all the time."
- Eron Ben-Yehuda
Eron Yehuda
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