Mr. Messer specializes in civil litigation with emphasis on construction, consumer law, employment, governmental liability and public entity defense, insurance, property-related claims, subrogation, torts and personal injuries, and trial practice. He has substantial jury trial experience, most recently an April 27, 2005 defense jury verdict in a personal injury case where he represented the Los Angeles Unified School District and one of its teachers.

• Construction
  
  Mr. Messer has handled many claims and lawsuits arising from construction, including construction defects, delay claims, indemnity and insurance claims, inverse condemnation, personal injuries and property damages claims.
  
  Recently, Mr. Messer handled a multi-million dollar construction management case for a college district in which a contractor sued the District for payment of cost overruns on a school site construction project. This particular case involved stop notices, delay claims, unforeseen conditions and adequacy of construction specifications. We also successfully pursued cross-claims under the False Claims Act (California Government Code sections 12650 et seq.). We were able to negotiate a favorable settlement for the District, that included disbarment of several cross-defendants pursuant to our False Claims allegations.
  
  Mr. Messer has prosecuted and defended several actions, each involving millions of dollars of property damages, allegedly caused by the legal fault of designers, contractors, and/or sub-contractors. He is familiar with the contractual, insurance, and legal issues that permeate those claims.
  
  
• Consumer Law
  
  Since 1986, Mr. Messer has defended institutional clients and their employees in actions arising out of California's Fair Credit Reporting and Fair Debt Collection Practices Acts (Civil Code sections 1785 et seq. and 1788 et seq.), related common law claims (typically misrepresentation and defamation theories), and arising under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA"), Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA"), and Truth in Lending Act ("TILA").
  
  Mr. Messer has successfully handled these cases in both state and federal courts. In a recent case, Mr. Messer wrote all of the papers and overcame written opposition to win a federal court's approval of the settlement of a national class action.
  
  Mr. Messer is also experienced in defending companies in civil actions prosecuted by the Attorney General of California and by County District Attorneys under the Unfair Business Practices Act (Business and Professions Code sections 17200 et seq.), restitution, and under related legal theories.
  
  Since 1999, Mr. Messer has been a member of ACA International's Member Attorney Program.
  
  
• Employment
  
  Mr. Messer's experience includes cases before the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, California Superior Courts, U.S. District Courts, the California Court of Appeal, and the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He has defended claims and cases involving allegations of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, age discrimination, race discrimination, marital status discrimination, defamation, assault, battery, wrongful termination, pregnancy discrimination, violation of ADA, invasion of privacy, wrongful infliction of emotional distress, and termination in violation of public policy.
  
  Mr. Messer recently represented a school district and its employee in related cases involving allegations of assault and battery, and failure to accommodate a resulting disability. Mr. Messer negotiated a good global resolution of those cases for our clients.
  
  Mr. Messer recently defended a cutting-edge case involving alleged marital discrimination in which the Court of Appeal unanimously affirmed the trial court's granting of our Motion for Summary Judgment. The case involved termination of an employee for conflict of interest after the employer learned that the employee's wife worked for a competitor. The allegations included marital status discrimination, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and wrongful termination in violation of public policy. Mr. Messer handled the underlying case as well as the appeal.
  
  Mr. Messer has represented public entities in employment litigation. He recently won a summary adjudication motion in a sexual harassment/wrongful termination case on behalf of a school district which he was then able to settle for a nominal amount. Recently, he also defended a school district in a federal civil rights action where the plaintiff alleged false arrest, false imprisonment, excessive force, failure to obtain medical care, and several other causes of action. Again, Mr. Messer was successful on a motion for summary judgment at the trial court level, which plaintiff then appealed. During pendency of the appeal, the school district decided to settle the matter for a minimal amount, which was made possible due to the successful defense strategy.
  
  Mr. Messer is knowledgeable about collective bargaining agreements and Personnel Commission rules. He is cognizant of the Education Code's provisions for unique workers compensation benefits to injured school employees, and how to utilize such unique benefits to reduce potential damages in employment litigation.
  
  In a case filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, plaintiff alleged wrongful termination, termination in violation of public policy, gender discrimination and defamation. Charles Messer obtained a defense verdict on behalf of the employer and the case subsequently settled for a waiver of costs.
  
  And, in another case filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, Mr. Messer represented an officer of an entity in a lawsuit brought by his former executive secretary alleging sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and defamation. The case ultimately settled for a nominal sum, while plaintiff was under pressure from motions to compel plaintiff to answer discovery, and to dismiss the case for failure to prosecute.
  
  
• Governmental Liability and Public Entity Defense
  
  For over twenty (20) years, Mr. Messer has defended public entities in cases for personal injuries and property damages. In his first superior court trial in 1984, he represented the City of Huntington Beach in a police misconduct/excessive force case. He obtained a defense verdict.
  
  Since then, Mr. Messer has represented public entities in a wide variety of matters, including employment disputes, public works disputes, and alleged misconduct by employees (including police officers and teachers). He represented a local university in a serious personal injury case arising out of post-earthquake repairs.
  
  He has also handled other cases for public entities including representation of a school district in a federal civil rights case in which plaintiff, a high school senior, refused to relinquish her cell phone which was not allowed according to school rules. School officers were brought in to recover the cell phone, an altercation ensued in which plaintiff (5-10, 210 lbs.) kicked and scratched the officer, and plaintiff was arrested for disruption. A motion for summary judgment was decided in the school district's favor.
  
  Most recently, Mr. Messer represented the Los Angeles Unified School District and one of its teachers in a personal injury action by an autistic sixth grader. Plaintiff alleged assault, battery, and negligence, as well as negligent training of teachers and negligent student placement. Plaintiff's allegations were supported by the student's one-on-one aide. Mr. Messer was successful in persuading the trial court to dismiss most of the negligence allegations for failure to exhaust administrative remedies under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Following a jury trial of remaining issues, the jury returned a defense verdict for the District and the teacher on April 27, 2005.
  
  
• Insurance
  
  Mr. Messer has experience in representing property insurers in first-party claims, and in representing insurers in employment claims. He also has experience in recovering property damages from other parties' insurers.
  
  Mr. Messer has published and lectured on insurance law for the Property Insurance Law Committee, Torts and Insurance Practice Section, American Bar Association.
  
  
• Property-related Claims
  
  Mr. Messer has much experience in property-related claims, mostly representing property owners and developers against designers, contractors, sub-contractors, and others. He has handled several multi-million dollar cases that each involved complex issues of delay, inadequate construction specifications, alleged unforeseen conditions, insurance and indemnity disputes, and causation.
  
  Mr. Messer is knowledgeable about the legal relationships between homeowners and homeowners' associations, CC&Rs (Conditions, Covenants, and Restrictions), easement issues, the fiduciary duties of HOA directors, and related insurance issues.
  
  
• Subrogation
  
  Mr. Messer has considerable experience in subrogation litigation. A sampling of his cases include the following:
  

• Obtained a Obtained a $1.9 million jury verdict for a manufacturer and its insurers against a warehouseman for damages caused by a forklift fire, which we tried on theories of negligent maintenance of the forklift and negligent response (lack of an emergency plan) to the fire. Mr. Messer received a unanimous favorable jury verdict at trial.
  
  
• Representation of a manufacturer and its insurer against an asbestos abatement contractor and project manager for damages caused by a fire during the project, in which defendants paid their policy limits of nearly $2 million to settle this litigation.
  
  
• Negotiation of a settlement of over $2 million for a high-rise building manager and its insurer for damages caused by a fire during an asbestos abatement project.
  
  
• Representation of a manufacturer and its insurer for damages caused by a fire during disassembly of a modular building, which we settled for the defendant contractor's $1 million policy limit, without litigation.
  
  
• Representation of a sugar cane field owner and its insurer in a case against an electric utility company for negligence that ignited a fire and burned the owner's field, which we settled for over $500,000.
  
  
• Current representation of several insurers in subrogation litigation arising out of a chemical fire in Phoenix, Arizona, with pending property damages claims exceeding $68 million.
  
  
• When a commercial office building was flooded by its fire sprinkler system after a pipe coupling suddenly broke in the middle of the night, we recovered over $2 million from the coupling's distributor and the sprinkler contractor who installed it.
  
  
• Representation of a supply company and its insurer against a building's owner and its contractors from damages sustained when a roof collapsed during torrential rains, in which we obtained a favorable settlement for our clients.
  
  
• Subrogation claims of a publisher and insurer against a roofing contractor, whose negligence caused rain damage to books.
  
  
• Representation of an aircraft parts distributor and its insurer against the contractors of sprinkler system following corrosion of an underground pipe and subsequent flooding a warehouse.
  

• Torts and Personal Injury
  
  Mr. Messer has defended hundreds of personal injury cases, including birth defects, brain injuries, burn injuries, cancer, death, and paralysis, as well as emotional and orthopedic injuries.
  
  From 1987 to 1995, Mr. Messer was a trial lawyer for Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. in jury trials where plaintiffs alleged that their birth defects were caused by Merrell's products Bendectin (a morning sickness drug marketed from 1956 to 1983) and Clomid (a fertility drug marketed since 1967). He tried such cases to verdicts in California, Idaho, Texas, Utah, and Washington.
  
  During trial preparation in 1989, Mr. Messer deposed all of the plaintiffs' expert witnesses in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 125 L.Ed.2d 469, 113 S.Ct. 2786 (1993). Daubert may be the most important case about evidence in the history of American jurisprudence.
  
  Mr. Messer deposed the plaintiff's ay and expert witnesses, prepared and defended all of the defense experts, and wrote the dispositive trial court motions in another birth defects case, Lust v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., 89 F.3d 594 (9th Cir. 1996).
  
  In a recent brain injury case where the plaintiffs were represented by Michael Piuze, Mr. Messer obtained a defense verdict for our client.
  
  
• Trial Practice
  
  Mr. Messer has tried numerous cases to verdicts. Those cases include cases in the areas of construction, contractual indemnity, defamation, employment, governmental liability and public entity defense, insurance coverage, personal injuries, products liability, property damages, and subrogation.
  
  In 1983, Mr. Messer won the first case that he ever tried (a commercial dispute in the Los Angeles Municipal Court, where he represented a company that was a plaintiff and a cross-defendant). His most recent verdict was an April 2005 defense jury verdict in the Los Angeles Superior Court.

All courts of the State of California (1981)

United States District Courts:
          Central District of California (1982)
          Eastern District of California (1987)
          Northern District of California (1988)
          Southern District of California (1988)

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (1982)

Other Courts
          Mr. Messer has been admitted to practice, pro hac vice,
          in various state and federal courts in Alaska, Arizona,
          Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon,
          Texas, Utah, and Washington.

PROFESSIONAL & CIVIC INVOLVEMENT

State Bar of California
American Bar Association
         Tort and Insurance Practice Section
         Litigation Section
American Collectors Association (ACA), Member Attorneys Program (MAP)