Christine Spagnoli
Partner | Greene Broillet & Wheeler, LLP
Christine Spagnoli is a product liability, personal injury and wrongful death trial lawyer and partner at Greene Broillet & Wheeler, LLP in El Segundo, California. J.D., Loyola Law School, Los Angeles (1986).
Meet Christine
Contact
Suite 2100
El Segundo, California 90245
Christine D. Spagnoli is a partner at Greene Broillet & Wheeler, LLP in El Segundo, California. She represents plaintiffs in product liability, personal injury and legal malpractice cases, with much of her work focused on defective vehicles and tires.
Spagnoli was part of the 1999 trial against General Motors in which a jury returned a $4.9 billion verdict after a defective fuel tank caused burn injuries to two adults and four children. She has led a series of cases over rollovers of Ford 15-passenger vans, including a $73 million verdict in 2011 and a $25.9 million verdict in 2018. She served as plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel in the cases arising from the 2015 crash of a FedEx tractor-trailer into a bus carrying high school students near Orland, California, and as co-lead trial counsel in a 2001 case against Southern California Edison that ended in a $21 million verdict for an electrocuted avocado picker.
She was president of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles in 2002 and of the Consumer Attorneys of California in 2009, and she sits on the board of the American Association for Justice. In 2012, CAALA named her its Trial Lawyer of the Year, the first woman to receive that honor, and AAJ gave her its Harry M. Philo Award in 2017. She has served on the state’s Civil Jury Instructions Committee since her appointment by the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, and in 2020 Gov. Gavin Newsom named her to a Los Angeles judicial selection advisory committee. She earned her law degree cum laude from Loyola Law School in 1986 and her bachelor’s degree from UCLA in 1978.
Experience and Expertise
Qualifications
Timeline
- State Bar of California
- U.S. District Court, Central District of California
- U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
- J.D. (cum laude), Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, 1986
- B.A., University of California, Los Angeles, 1978
Practice Areas
- American Association for Justice (Board Member; Past Chair, Product Liability Section)
- American Board of Trial Advocates (Associate)
- Consumer Attorneys of California (President, 2009)
- Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (President, 2002)
- Attorneys Information Exchange Group (Past President)
- International Academy of Trial Lawyers (Board Member)
- International Society of Barristers (Board Member)
- Judicial Council of California Advisory Committee on Civil Jury Instructions (Member)
- Public Justice
- Litigation Counsel of America
- Loyola Law School Board of Overseers
- RAND Institute for Civil Justice Board of Overseers
- American Institute of Personal Injury Attorneys
- Harry M. Philo Award, American Association for Justice, 2017
- Trial Lawyer of the Year, Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, 2012
- Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles Hall of Fame, 2018
- Robert E. Cartwright Award, Consumer Attorneys of California, 2014
- Edward I. Pollock Award, Consumer Attorneys of California, 2021
- Rage for Justice Lifetime Legal Achievement Award, Consumer Watchdog, 2017
- F. Scott Baldwin Award, American Association for Justice New Lawyers Division, 2001
- Lawyer of the Year, Product Liability Litigation (Los Angeles), Best Lawyers in America, 2013
- Top 30 Plaintiff Lawyers of California, Daily Journal, 2017-2018
- Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers, 2026
- $4.9 Billion Verdict: 1999 verdict against General Motors after a defective fuel tank caused burn injuries to two adults and four children.
- $73 Million Verdict: November 2011 verdict, including $50 million in punitive damages, for the family of a Sacramento church volunteer killed in a Ford 15-passenger van rollover after a tire tread separation.
- $58 Million Verdict: As co-counsel, verdict for a man severely burned by a defective O-ring.
- $25.9 Million Verdict: March 2018 verdict, as co-lead trial counsel, for the family of a New Port Richey, Florida, church volunteer killed in a Ford 15-passenger van rollover; named a National Law Journal Top 100 Verdict of 2018.
- $25 Million Recovery: McGee v. City of Alameda, involving an electrocuted construction worker.
- $21 Million Verdict: 2001 verdict, as co-lead trial counsel, against Southern California Edison for an electrocuted avocado picker.
- $8.8 Million Recovery: Brezovec v. State of California, a brain injury and motor vehicle case.
- $6.4 Million Recovery: Ogden v. Hamm Brothers Construction, a personal injury matter.
- $5 Million Verdict: July 2010 verdict for a man who suffered permanent spinal cord injuries when the roof of his Ford 15-passenger van crushed in a rollover.
- $5 Million Verdict: Riverside County verdict against a trucking company for a fatal tire blowout crash on I-215, with Molly McKibben and Omar Dardon.
- Settlement: As plaintiffs' co-lead counsel, settled the Federal Express Vehicle Collision Cases from the 2015 Orland, California, bus crash on the eve of trial in October 2017.
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