Associate Attorney
Christopher Bulone
Christopher Bulone is a fast-rising star in California courtrooms where he continues to rack up record results. Mr. Bulone graduated from the public interest-minded law school of The University of San Francisco in 2011 and spent his entire career since working tirelessly on behalf of the most downtrodden against the world's most powerful corporations.
So far in 2024, Mr. Bulone won seven million, seven hundred thousand dollars ($7,700,000.00) for a man injured when a fire engine entered and intersection on a red light and eighteen million, seven hundred thousand dollars ($18,700,000.00) for man struck by a park ranger while napping in a park.
In 2023 Mr. Bulone was named as one of the Top 40 lawyers under 40 by The Daily Journal, which is California's only dedicated legal newspaper serving the entire state of California since 1888.
In November of 2023 Mr. Bulone and Gary Dordick co-tried the case of Greyson Griepentrog v. Banner Health in Maricopa County, Phoenix Arizona. The result of more than thirty-one million dollars ($31,000,000.00) is thought to be the largest personal injury verdict in the history of Arizona. In that case, Mr. Bulone argued that Greyson Griepentrog suffered a catastrophic brain injury during his birth on June 1, 2014, at Banner UMC-Phoenix. Mr. Bulone argued that Banner nurses, residents, and the attending OBGYN each violated the standard of care by administering Pitocin in the face of non-reassuring fetal heart rate monitoring indications. Mr. Bulone argued that the Pitocin caused Greyson's mother to undergo longer, more frequent and more intense contractions. Each contraction led to a deprivation of oxygen in the baby's brain until his oxygen reserves were depleted and the boy permanently brain damaged and paralyzed. Mr. Bulone argued that the Pitocin should have been stopped much sooner in the face of the non-reassuring fetal heart tracings evidenced in the nursing chart notes. Banner Hospital claimed that the indications on the fetal heart monitor were not dangerous but also claimed to have “lost” the monitoring strips before the plaintiff or his experts could see them. Banner Hospital and their experts argued that Greyson's abnormal presentation at birth and subsequent disability was due to a genetic abnormality and not to any medical negligence. They were proven wrong according to the unanimous jury verdict. Banner Hospital offered nothing in settlement.
On January 30th of 2023 Mr. Bulone set a record in Contra Costa County with a more than five-million, one hundred-thousand-dollar ($5,100,000.00) jury verdict ($7,670,000.00 to include prejudgment interest) for an immigrant struck in a crosswalk by a careless taxi driver. The plaintiff spoke no English and suffered from severe prior mental health issues for which she was hospitalized during the year before the accident. Difficulties with language, cognition, and the victim's righteous refusal to voice any of her deficits caused a mild traumatic brain injury to go undiagnosed for the first five years following the accident. Mr. Bulone was, nonetheless, able to prove the link between the car accident, the mild traumatic brain injury and the residual deficits that unfairly afflicted the hard-working mother of three.
In late 2021 Mr. Bulone's record setting jury trial verdict, of more than seventy-two million, six hundred thousand dollars ($72,600,000.00) in Greene v. Driz et al made headlines throughout the country. There Mr. Bulone represented a young model and her brother, a restauranteur and bar owner, who were the victims of a brutal beating at the hands of the wealthy then owners of eleven different Blaze Pizza franchises. Both injury victims were acting as innocent good samaritans attempting to stop the beating of a TMZ photographer just outside West Hollywood's The Nice Guy restaurant and lounge. The defendants claimed that they were attacked first and acted only in self defense, and that none of them were responsible for any injury or blows landed on Ms. Greene. The claims were soundly rejected by the jury. After a three week trial wherein Mr. Bulone, as lead trial attorney, selected the jury, gave opening and closing arguments, the jury awarded his clients more than seventy-two million, six hundred thousand dollars ($72,600,000.00) between compensatory and punitive damages. The jury award is thought to be the largest in history for a case of predominantly PTSD injuries.
Also in 2021, Mr. Bulone aggressively and tirelessly litigated the case of Eric Murillo v. U-Haul Co. of Arizona et al against one of the country's largest rental companies and a defense law firm who bitterly contested fault. The case culminated in a forty-two million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar ($42,750,000.00) result. The case involved a tragic accident wherein the then thirty-four (34) year old Eric Murillo rented a U-Haul truck from U-Haul Moving and Storage of San Bernardino and drove it only approximately seven miles, before the engine began to billow smoke and catch fire. Mr. Murillo leapt from the cabin at high speed, impacted his head and became forever seriously brain injured and dependent upon twenty-four-hour (24) care. After approximately fifty-five depositions and many hundreds of written discovery requests, Gary Dordick and Christopher Bulone tried the case to a three judge panel of arbitrators who unanimously found that plaintiff proved that the rental truck engine caught fire from poor maintenance and inspection, leading to a likely power steering fluid loss, sudden compromised steering and braking, and the smoke and fire event that caused Mr. Murillo to jump. The panel found one hundred percent (100%) fault on the U-Haul companies. Although the arbitration was bifurcated on liability and damages the U-Haul companies still offered zero (0) before the start of the damages phase. Following the presentation of the still bitterly contested damages phase of the case and during the panel's deliberations, the U-Haul defendants finally agreed to a combined Forty-one million seven-hundred and fifty thousand dollar ($41,750,000.00) settlement. The settlement was followed by a policy limits demand and settlement of another one million dollars ($1,000,000.00) from the last outside mechanic to work on the truck, bringing the total result to a historic forty-two million, seven hundred and fifty thousands dollars ($42,750,000.00).
Mr. Bulone's other noteworthy results since joining the Dordick Law Corporation in 2017, include handling the matter of Sosa v. DJI Technology, Inc. culminating in a jury verdict of over thirty-one million dollars ($31,000,000.00). This was the third highest verdict in the State of California during that year. Mr. Bulone handled another traumatic brain injury case resulting in seventeen million dollars ($17,000,000.00) and another resulting in an eight million dollar ($8,000,000.00) settlement. Mr. Bulone tried the case of Holmes v. Perry in Riverside Superior Court to a jury verdict resulting in the third largest multi-vehicle collision accident verdict in California in 2018. He represented the victim of a motorcycle accident resulting in a twelve and a half million dollar ($12,500,000.00) settlement in one of California's most conservative venues and further obtained results in the multiple seven figures in an insurance bad faith matter, a ride-sharing rape case, and several wrongful death cases.
In 2019 Mr. Bulone beat the odds to take on powerful construction companies on behalf of a distraught mother suffering the tragic death of her son who slipped from the third story scaffolding at his construction job. Mr. Bulone argued that the job site was abhorrently unsafe, that a stucco company had failed to clean the slippery stucco overspray residue from the scaffolding and that their negligence caused Plaintiff's son to lose his footing and fall to his death. There were no witnesses to the fall and government (OSHA) investigations found no wrong doing by the defendants. During the course of Mr. Bulone's relentless discovery, however, a cover up by the defendants was revealed resulting in the guilty corporation admitting responsibility for the young man's death and another multi seven figure result in Orange County.
Mr. Bulone also handled the case of a thirteen-year-old girl who was catastrophically injured by a falling eucalyptus tree. Liability was denied until discovery revealed that the defendants should have known of a dangerous problem with the tree that they did not act quickly to resolve. After defeating several summary judgment motions, Mr. Bulone resolved the matter for fourteen million dollars ($14,000,000.00), also in Orange County.
In June of 2019 Christopher Bulone was identified by the National Trial Lawyers as one of the Top 40 Under 40 Civil Plaintiff Trial Lawyers in California. Mr. Bulone was named a Super Lawyers' “Rising Star” in 2020, 2021 and 2022 and 2023. Mr. Bulone has also been named as an Honorary Board Member in the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers' Charity (LATLC).
Mr. Bulone has lectured to large audiences of fellow trial lawyers on winning brain injury cases at the John Romano Workhorse Seminar in Orlando Florida in 2023 and at the TBI Med Legal Seminar in San Diego in 2021, on overcoming incorrect or misleading hospital toxicology reports at the Dordick Trial College and lectured to more than five thousand (5,000) fellow trial lawyers at TBI Med Legal's seminar recapping the historic result in Murillo v. U-Haul et al.