Michael A. Kelly is a shareholder with Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger in San Francisco.
AALM: What led you to pursue a career in personal injury law?
MK: I clerked for the Walkup firm all three years during law school. I was inspired by the life-changing impact lawyers had in optimizing the lives of clients suffering from major disabilities, cognitive impairment and financial hardship sustained through no fault of their own.
As a law student, I was mentored by top shelf civil litigators including Bruce Walkup, Jim Downing, George Shelby, Ralph Bastian, Paul Melodia and Dan Kelly. After passing the bar, I worked as a criminal defense attorney for three years before transitioning to plaintiff’s injury claims where the cases I prosecuted could improve the safety and well-being of many.
My early work focused on cases involving consumer product liability, automobile crashworthiness and medical negligence. In 1976, when California passed its MICRA laws, limiting damages and reducing attorneys’ fees, most lawyers left medical malpractice cases. But Bruce Walkup and the firm continued to fight for those who needed help. That was a good example of the importance of standing up for what’s right, even when the system is against you.
AALM: You have handled over 250 injury and wrongful death cases with a recovery of more than $1 million for your client. From all those cases, what stands out to you most?
MK: What doesn’t stand out are the amounts. What does stand out is the resilience and courage of the people I have been privileged to help. In the medical negligence area, I think of the son of two loving parents who was injured while surfing near Moss Beach. He fell from his board, and it struck him in the head. He went to a small hospital on the coast where a doctor misdiagnosed him, failing to recognize that an artery in his skull was transected, and he was bleeding into his brain. The doctor sewed up his scalp laceration and sent him home, where he passed away. His parents struggled to find a lawyer because California’s MICRA laws capped their recovery at $250,000. Despite this, I took the case and secured a $3 million jury verdict, which the trial judge reduced to $250,000 as soon as the jurors left the courthouse. Though the recovery was modest and unfair because of MICRA, the trial gave the family their day in court, and the doctor lost his license, preventing further harm. The money didn’t matter. Helping the parents heal was worth the time, effort and expense.
AALM: Tell us about your work on the electric utility-caused wildfires against PG&E and Southern California Edison.
MK: In wildfire litigation, the ability to hold utilities accountable has made us safer because of remedial changes that have been instituted. We are not totally safe as Los Angeles has proved, but we are getting there. A key example is the adoption of Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS), which became the industry standard after the 2017 Sonoma and Napa fires. This change directly resulted from our effort to address how utilities approach fire prevention.
Wildfires in California caused by PG&E, Southern California Edison, and other utility negligence have been a long-standing problem. Too often, fires result from failures to maintain equipment and follow vegetation management requirements. Wildfires occur when low humidity, high winds and dry vegetation combine, and a source of ignition is present. As seen in the 2017 fires, that source can come from power lines arcing, tree contact with transmission lines and mechanical failures. Proactive action is the key to preventing these fires: burying power lines underground, trimming adjacent trees and vegetation, and shutting off power when high fire risk is predicted. SC Edison and PG&E’s lack of preventive action during the 2017 and 2018 fires led to deadly mudslides in Montecito.
Our litigation has had the dual aim of helping families who have lost everything while trying to prevent these catastrophes from happening again.
For more information, visit walkuplawoffice.com.
