Attorney Anthony A. Ferrigno brings nearly 40 years of experience to bear on the firm's clients' legal matters. The firm serves both those wishing to prosecute their own claims, as well as those who need assistance in defending suits filed against them. While a full service law firm, its emphasis is business litigation.
Starting with his earliest academic achievements and right through the cases he is currently litigating, excellence in performance while maintaining the highest ethical standards is Attorney Ferrigno's "stock in trade". That commitment to excellence, coupled with hard work and discipline towards achieving best results, was reflected early, as he graduated with honors from one of the bay area's most highly regarded academic institutions. San Francisco's Saint Ignatius High School. There, hard work as captain of the track team also led to his twice achieving All-State honors as a distance runner. To this day, his pastimes include running; he enjoys golf and he and his wife spend spare time reading, writing and with their precious family dogs and traveling for visits with their children in Tennessee. Attorney Ferrigno worked his way through college, graduating in 1965 from the University of California at Berkeley, earning a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Psychology and Liberal Arts. Thereafter, after spending some time doing graduate work in psychology at San Francisco State College, he and his wife Dana, to whom he has been married over 40 years, started their family raising two children, while he continued to work as a probation officer by day and attended a full time law school curriculum by night. In 1974, he graduated near the top of his class from one of California's most prestigious law schools, Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles. That same year he passed California's State Bar examination and was admitted to the practice of law. He is admitted to practice before all Court's in the state of California, including the Federal Court. He has earned admission, as well, to the United States Supreme Court Bar.
Attorney Ferrigno has earned the highest recognition in his profession as reflected by the ratings he has received in ethics and performance by both peers and clients. He continues to achieve their highest marks, as published by Martindale-Hubbell, the best recognized lawyer rating firm in the nation. From a time commencing in the late 1970's, when he achieved the highest settlement then ever recorded in a wrongful death cases in California, thru the late 1980's and into the 1990's during which time he won multi-million dollar jury verdicts against fortune 500 companies on claims including trade secret misappropriation, fraud and breach of contract, and settled huge class action anti-trust claims on behalf of small business owners and consumers; and, into the present, as lead counsel coordinating a legal team composed of attorneys from five separate law firms in prosecuting class actions, again representing small businesses as well as consumers, against on of the major technology companies in the Silicon Valley; and, while being a prominent member of another legal team litigating claims in the cell-phone industry. Attorney Ferrigno continues to litigate cases at very highest level of performance. At The Law Offices of Anthony A. Ferrigno, client matters are always treated with commitment to excellence.
CASE EXPERIENCE & HISTORY
Attorney Ferrigno has achieved certain particularly notable results over many years of practice, some of which are as follows:
Late 1970's: In an Orange County, CA case, Armendariz v. Hood Corporation et al. he secures the then highest recorded settlement for a wrongful death case in California on behalf of a family whose major "bread-winner" was killed by a wrong-way drunk driver in a head-on collision on CA Interstate Highway 91;
Late 1980's: In Orange County Superior Court CA case, Dello v. Harley Davidson, jury verdict for client in eight week jury trial is approximately $5.8 million with approximately $1 million in economic damages and the remainder in punitive damages in breach of contract, fraud (alleging affirmative misrepresentations and concealment) and misappropriation of trade secret case. The plaintiff was a manufacturer and supplier of after-market exhaust systems who alleged oral agreement promising exclusive supplier contract and fraud aimed at taking his trade secrets, disclosed in confidence, in the manufacture of exhaust pipes for motorcycles directed at secretly disclosing that Intellectual property to other suppliers who would then manufacture the units at a lower cost. After appellate briefing and oral argument, matter settled for confidential amount.
1992: In San Diego Superior Court, PLS Inc. v. Harris Corp., jury verdict for client in the amount of $98.6 million for breach of contract and fraud, of which about $13 million was economic damages and remainder punitive damages. Plaintiff was manufacturer of legal software it alleged defendant, a competitor, contracted to exercise "best efforts" to market, promote and sell through one of its subsidiaries, while all the time intending to "shelve" the software while it intended without disclosing same to sell that very sales division, subsidiary company that it promised would be "rolling out" and selling the software and that, by the time plaintiff discovered the fraud, it was too late to recover, as a results of which the company failed and had to close its doors. The verdict was partially overturned on appeal as to damages, returned to the trial court, and then settled for confidential amount.
Approximately 1997: In Orange County Superior Court, CA case, Garabedian v. LASMSA, after approximately three weeks of trial, his consumer class action anti-trust case involving allegations of price fixing the cellular phone service rates by the two cellular phone service companies in the greater Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura Counties area, prosecuted together with other law firms, settled for an amount valued over $200 million. Case resolved after settled approval affirmed on appeal.
Late 1990's: Alameda County Superior Court, CA case, Alberts v. Southland Corp., his case, prosecuted as a class action together with several other law firms on behalf of all Seven-11 store franchisees, was settled for amount valued approximately in the 10's of millions of dollars. The case was about allegations of breach of contract, fraud and anti-trust violations, involving rebates, discounts and allowances about which it alleged the franchisor's predatory business practices. The case resolved in 2001 after the class action settlement approval was affirmed on appeal.
2009-2010: Alameda County Superior Court, CA case, Ayaad v. Sprint, one of the coordinated Early Termination Fee ("ETF") cases filed against multiply cellular service phone carriers. Attorney Ferrigno was a prominent member of the legal team that litigated this case until it was tried, but was not involved in the trial. In the Sprint defendant case, the result included a finding, now final after appeal, that Sprint's ETF fees were unlawful penalties as opposed to valid liquidated damages under the defendant's customer service agreements. The consumer client "payor" class was awarded $74 million in restitution of ETS fees, however, after affirming that award, the defendant Sprint's set-off claims were referred back to the trial court for further proceedings and re-trial, which proceedings are ongoing.
