Brydon Hugo & Parker's Edward Hugo

Small-Firm Defense Attorney Has a Near-Perfect Season
Matthew Hirsch
The Recorder
January 4, 2007

The champagne flowed a little bit early for civil defense attorney Edward Hugo, who wrapped up a year to remember with a few days to spare.

With a defense verdict finalized Dec. 27, Hugo, a name partner at 25-attorney Brydon Hugo & Parker in San Francisco, completed a marathon run of seven trials, finishing virtually undefeated on the year.

All told, Hugo won defense verdicts in three cases and had another one tossed on a nonsuit motion. The remaining three cases settled for less than $100,000 apiece.

"[That's] a year I have not seen matched in a long time," said his law partner John Brydon.

"To get three defense verdicts in a year is fairly remarkable, just because the plaintiffs counsel pretty much have control over which cases they take to trial," added Bishop, Barry, Howe, Haney & Ryder's Stuart McIntosh, who was co-counsel with Hugo in a recent mesothelioma suit.

Hugo began the year defending two companies in a wrongful death case that he says plaintiff attorneys valued at an estimated $14 million. The claims against Dana Corp., an auto parts supplier, were dropped after jury selection, and Pneumo Abex, Hugo's other client, struck a five-figure deal after all the trial evidence was presented.

Hugo won perhaps his biggest case of the year in June, when San Francisco Superior Court Judge John Munter handed down a verdict in what some believe was California's first lawsuit involving perchloroethylene, a degreasing solvent used in the dry-cleaning business.

Hugo said his client, a products distributor, was the only defendant in a group of manufacturers and distributors that wasn't found liable at trial. Two other defendants were initially hit with punitive damages of $75 million and $100 million, though both awards were knocked down significantly, he said.

Following a summer break when Hugo joined the running of the bulls in Spain, rode the same ground covered by five stages of the Tour de France and went shark diving in South Africa, the defense lawyer returned to court.

Hugo said he won the last mesothelioma case, Whitlock v. A.W. Chesterton, 06-449213, on the strength of his cross-examination, without putting up any new evidence following the plaintiffs' closing arguments.

But as a defense attorney, Hugo said there's always another battle to come back to.

Finishing the last trial of the year, "I felt like Roger Clemens," he said. "I'm retiring for a couple months."

Or not. Hugo's next trial is set for mid-January in Orange County, Calif.