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Michael L. Baum - Los Angeles, CA
11111 Santa Monica Blvd.Ste. 1750 Los Angeles, CA 90025
Wisner Baum LLP
Los Angeles Prescription Drugs Lawyer
Overview
Michael L. Baum is the senior partner of Wisner Baum LLP (formerly Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman). For 29 years he was Baum Hedlund's managing partner until 2023 when he proudly turned over the reins to R. Brent Wisner. During his time at the helm, he led the firm through thousands of wrongful death and personal injury cases stemming from harmful major pharmaceutical drugs, consumer products, and commercial transportation...
Michael L. Baum is the senior partner of Wisner Baum LLP (formerly Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman). For 29 years he was Baum Hedlund's managing partner until 2023 when he proudly turned over the reins to R. Brent Wisner. During his time at the helm, he led the firm through thousands of wrongful death and personal injury cases stemming from harmful major pharmaceutical drugs, consumer products, and commercial transportation...
Michael L. Baum is the senior partner of Wisner Baum LLP (formerly Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman). For 29 years he was Baum Hedlund's managing partner until 2023 when he proudly turned over the reins to R. Brent Wisner. During his time at the helm, he led the firm through thousands of wrongful death and personal injury cases stemming from harmful major pharmaceutical drugs, consumer products, and commercial transportation.
He began his career in 1985, primarily handling airline accidents and other commercial transportation disasters but then turned his focus to pharmaceutical product liability litigation, harmful, medical devices, dangerous herbicides, and consumer products.
"When I became an attorney in 1985, we were the new kids on the block. We only had dreams of achieving the success we now enjoy," Michael Baum says. "Our ethos from the beginning was pure and simple: we wanted to use the law to help people who had been wronged and make the world a better place. As much as we have grown over the years, that philosophy has remained, and out of it grew a culture that has attracted talented lawyers like Brent who share the same mission. He is exactly the kind of lawyer and leader that will take this firm to new heights. Wisner Baum LLP is in good hands."
Under Michael's leadership, we developed a reputation as a law firm that can be counted upon to go above and beyond what is needed to get the job done, a firm known for its cutting-edge, superior legal work in complex litigation. Michael's ceaseless advocacy in pharmaceutical and consumer fraud litigation has brought our firm international recognition.
Michael is very proud of the work we did in the tainted hemophilia medication litigation. In 1999, Michael served on the trial team in the only Hemophiliac AIDS case to go before a jury. Michael and the trial team represented Leo and Shirley Dixon, whose son, Ken Dixon, contracted the HIV virus and AIDS allegedly as a result of using hemophilia medication contaminated with HIV.
Evidence presented at trial showed the medication Ken Dixon used was plasma-derived medication contaminated from the use of high-risk donors with the HIV virus. The jurors found that two of the medication manufacturers, Cutter Biological and Alpha Therapeutics, were strictly liable for product liability, negligence, and fraud. The jurors further found that after Ken Dixon initially was infected with the AIDS virus (which was not known to him at the time), the continued use of the contaminated products further aggravated Ken's condition, exacerbating and accelerating the development of AIDS. The jury awarded Leo and Shirley Dixon $35.3 million in survival and wrongful death damages. Although the judge overturned the verdict based on a technical issue, the verdict provided essential justice for not only the Dixon family but for hemophiliacs across the country who have suffered and died as a result of their HIV-infected medication.
Fast-forward twenty years later, to find Michael continuing to fight for those injured by Big Pharma products. The National Law Journal recognized Michael and his team as 2018 Elite Trial Lawyers and Pharmaceutical Litigation first place winners for their unprecedented jury verdict against a brand-name drug manufacturer (GSK) for the wrongful death of a man who took a generic form of Paxil.
Michael served on the trial team for three of the first Monsanto Roundup lawsuits to go before juries. In the first trial, Michael and a team of lawyers represented Dewayne "Lee" Johnson, a Benicia, California school district groundskeeper, who alleged exposure to Monsanto herbicides caused him to develop terminal non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A jury in San Francisco unanimously awarded Mr. Johnson $289M in compensatory and punitive damages, finding that Monsanto acted with malice, oppression, or fraud. This award was later reduced to $20.5 million.
In the wake of this groundbreaking verdict, The National Trial Lawyers Top 100 recognized Michael and his team as the 2019 Trial Team of the Year in the Mass Torts category.
The second Roundup lawsuit to proceed to trial, Hardeman v. Monsanto Company, resulted in an $80 million jury verdict (later reduced to $25.2 million). In May of 2019, the third Roundup cancer trial culminated in a historic $2.055 billion verdict (later reduced to $87 million) in favor of a Bay Area couple who alleged years of exposure to Roundup weed killer caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The Pilliod verdict was the largest verdict in California and the second largest in the U.S. in 2019. It is also the ninth largest verdict in U.S. history. The Pilliod trial team has received numerous awards and accolades following this landmark verdict, including 2020 Elite Trial Lawyers Mass Tort Law Firm of the Year Finalist, Top 100 Verdicts 2019 by ALM and the National Law Journal and Daily Journal Top Verdicts 2019.
In addition, his firm is known for successfully resolving major transportation disaster cases against companies such as Airbus, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Amtrak, Bell Helicopter Co., Beechcraft, Boeing, Cessna, China Eastern Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, EgyptAir, Ford Motor Co., McDonnell Douglas, Piper, Robinson Helicopter Co., Sikorsky, SwissAir, TACA Airlines, TWA, United Airlines, and US Airways, among many others.
As part of the plaintiffs' trial team for families who lost loved ones in the 1989 United 232 Sioux City, Iowa, crash, Michael found the smoking gun document that showed General Electric's engineers' graphs predicting the next DC 10 engine failure, which happened to be the date of the United 232 crash five years later.
"Rigorously investigating and litigating the types of devastating cases we handle on a daily basis requires relentless focus and dedication to our clients' causes. Approaching things from the perspective that every problem has an optimum solution waiting to be apprehended simplifies our team's outlook on every aspect of each case we handle."
Michael was invited to speak before governmental and regulatory entities on several occasions concerning serious health hazards exposed, in part, due to his firm's litigation. He testified in Brussels at a public hearing before the European Parliament's Special Committee Hearing on the EU's authorization procedure for pesticides (PEST), concerning environment impacts of pesticides, including Monsanto's Roundup weed killer. He and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. delivered the keynote address to members of the European Green Party at the start of their pesticides hearing during that same trip. He and his partner, R. Brent Wisner, also briefed members of Parliament of Canada's Green Party about the first Roundup cancer verdict we helped obtain, as well as the evidence we presented at that trial. As a result of his groundbreaking work on the Monsanto Roundup cases, Politico EU chose Michael as one of five "changemakers" in the world making waves in pesticides policy.
Medical officials from foreign governments in countries such as Ireland, Japan, Russia, and Taiwan have sought Michael's advice and assistance with their countries' public policies concerning consumer drug safety. They've done so after becoming aware of Michael's impressive understanding of biomedical research, clinical trials, statistics, the pharmaceutical industry and marketing, as well as his firm's successful and effective discovery procedures and extensive work with experts on complicated scientific issues related to our firm's pharmaceutical litigation.
Career Highlights
• Among his many achievements, accomplished with the help of his team, Michael is most proud of:
• His firm's historic $289M and the $2B Roundup cancer verdicts against Monsanto (now Bayer) and the firm's release of The Monsanto Papers;
• Being recognized, along with his firm, as a national leader in the antidepressant Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft suicide litigation;
• Working to bring about the black box suicidality warning for children and young adults, now on most antidepressant labels;
• Helping spur funding for the Ricky Ray Hemophilia Relief Fund Act of 1998, which was made part of the negotiated settlement to help scores of hemophiliacs infected with HIV by contaminated medication;
• Arranging for the face-to-face presentation between pharmaceutical company executives and dozens of hemophiliac families that got to say, person by person, holding before and after photos of themselves or departed loved ones, how the hemophilia-AIDS epidemic, and the manner in which the companies caused and covered it up, impacted their lives;
• Being one of the leaders in the fight against federal preemption, a doctrine pushed by the pharmaceutical industry to wipe out consumers' rights to sue drug companies for injuries caused by their drugs (Preemption was finally defeated in 2009 with the Supreme Court's ruling in Wyeth v. Levine);
• Creating the first class action ever filed against an SSRI-antidepressant manufacturer, ending with the successful resolution of more than 3,000 Paxil injury cases;
• Finding "needles in haystacks" and "smoking guns" in document productions, such as GE engineers' graphs predicting the next DC 10 engine failure which mirrored the date of the United 232 crash five years later, an internal study linking SSRIs to cardio birth defects, or documentation of company programs to ghostwrite medical journal articles for academic opinion leaders to give the appearance of objective science when actually serving marketing objectives to increase prescriptions, i.e. disguised advertising;
• Negotiating the first official public apology by an airline for the 2003 Air Midwest Flt. 5481 Charlotte, North Carolina crash;
• Eliminating California law that protected tobacco companies from lawsuits. For many years, the statute of limitations was considered to begin to run from the date the plaintiff knew or should have known that he/she was addicted to tobacco. This effectively barred plaintiffs, many of whom began smoking in their teens, from suing. Now, the statute of limitations runs when the plaintiff's physical injuries are (or reasonably could be) discovered;
• Developing a rigorous, skillful, and technical method for locating hard-to-find manufacturer documents in order to successfully litigate against major pharmaceutical companies, positioning his firm as a leader in the fight to increase public health and safety;
• Creating coalitions of activists, attorneys, and Wisner Baum LLP staff, who work together to resolve global problems caused by harmful and defective drugs, which no individual could accomplish alone.
"We have adopted Margaret Mead's philosophy, ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.'"
Michael has served on numerous trial teams and plaintiffs' steering committees in mass tort litigation involving pharmaceutical product liability cases as well as major airline crashes.
He has earned an AV® 5.0 out of 5 Peer Review Rating through Martindale Hubbell, an Avvo Superb Score of 10, and is recognized in The National Trial Lawyers Top 100, Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyer, The Best Lawyers in America®, Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, and Southern California Super Lawyers.
About Michael L. Baum
Practice Areas
- Prescription Drugs
- Catastrophic Injury
- Class Action Litigation
- Complex and Multi-District Litigation
- Consumer Fraud Litigation
- Defective Medical Devices
- Toxic Torts
- Qui Tam Claims
- Wrongful Death Law
Current Employment Position(s)
- Senior Partner, Attorney, President
Languages
- English
Representative Clients
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Adventure Airlines Crash, Grand Canyon, AZ, 1992
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Amtrak Train Crash, Camden, South Carolina, 1991
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Amtrak/Conrail Train Crash, Chase, Maryland, 1987
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Arrow Air Crash, Gander, Newfoundland, 1985
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Cessna 210 Air Crash, Manassas, Virginia, 1990
- Plaintiffs Counsel, CommutAir (USAir) Airlines Crash, Saranac Lake, NY
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Continental Express Crash, Durango, Colorado, 1988
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Dalkon-Shield Litigation, 1984
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Delta Airlines Crash, Dallas, Texas, 1988
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire, San Juan, PR, 1986
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Grand Canyon Airlines Crash, Phoenix, AZ, 1989
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Hawaii Helicopters Crash, Maui, 1992
- Plaintiffs Counsel, L-Tryptophan Drug Litigation, 1990
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Northwest Airlines Crash, Detroit, 1987
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Northwest Airlines Crash, Detroit, 1990
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Prozac Drug Litigation, 1990
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Scenic Air Tours Airline Crash, Hawaii, 1989
- Plaintiffs Counsel, Tropic Air Crash, Belize, 1991
- Plaintiffs Counsel, United Airlines Crash, Colorado Springs, CO, 1991
- Plaintiffs Counsel, United Airlines Crash, Sioux City, Iowa, 1989
- Plaintiffs Counsel, USAir Airlines Crash, Flushing, New York, 1992
- Plaintiffs Counsel, USAir/Skywest Airlines Crash, Los Angeles, 1991
Qualifications
Bar Admissions
- District of Columbia, 1993
- California, 1985
- U.S. District Court Central District of California, 1986
- U.S. District Court Eastern District of California, 1989
- U.S. District Court Northern District of California, 1989
- U.S. Court of Appeals 9th Circuit, 1990
- U.S. District Court Western District of Michigan, 1991
- U.S. Supreme Court, 1991
- U.S. District Court Northern District of Ohio, 1993
- U.S. Court of Appeals 4th Circuit, 1996
- U.S. District Court Northern District of New York, 1996
- U.S. Court of Appeals 7th Circuit, 1997
- U.S. District Court Western District of New York, 2009
- U.S. District Court Eastern District of Wisconsin, 2009
- U.S. Court of Appeals 1st Circuit, 2013
Other Affiliations
- State Bar of California
- The District of Columbia Bar
- Bar Association of the District of Columbia
- Consumer Attorneys of California
- United Airlines Crash, Sioux City, Iowa, 1989 (Member, Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, MDL 817)
- United Airlines Crash, Sioux City, Iowa, 1989, 1991 - 1992 (Trial Team Member)
- Northwest Airlines Crash, Detroit, Michigan, 1990, 1990 (Member, Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, MDL 891)
- USAir 1016 Aircrash at Charlotte, North Carolina, 1994 (Member, Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, MDL 1041)
- USAir 1016 Aircrash at Charlotte, North Carolina, 1994, 1997 (Trial Team Member)
- Illinois State Court Proceedings for USAir 427 Aircrash near Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, 1994 (Member, Plaintiffs' Steering Committee)
- Consolidated Complex Biological-Medical Products Liability Cases, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1997 - 2001 (Lead Counsel)
- Consolidated Hemophilia-AIDS Cases, New Orleans, Lousiana, 1999 (Trial Team Member)
- Paxil Products Liability Litigation (Member, Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, MDL 1574)
- American Association for Justice - Qui Tam Litigation Group (Member)
- Public Citizen's Civil Justice Project (Advocate)
- Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles
- San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association
- American Association for Justice: Leader’s Forum
Education
- University of California at Los Angeles School of Law, Los Angeles, California, 1985
J.D. - University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, 1982
B.A.
Honors: summa cum laude
Classes and Seminars
- Case Theories, Challenges and Case Selection Considerations for Your Actos Inventory? , HB Litigation Conferences, - October 5, 2012
- Selling Sickness 2013, People Before Profits, Roundtable: Legal Issues, - 2013
- Litigation Update and Trial Analysis Roundtable: ?Actos Trial Analysis? , AAJ Plaintiff Trial Lawyers and presented with Mass Torts Made Perfect , - 2013
- Actos Bladder Cancer Litigation Status Update, Consumer Attorneys of California, - 2013
- Panel Discussion on YouTube, Medicating Normal & Malpractice Diaries, A Discussion About Drug Safety & Legal Advocacy
- UCLA Law Building, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, UCLA School of Law, Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment and The Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy, Suing Monsanto: How a Team of Lawyers Won a Verdict Linking the Herbicide Roundup to Cancer
- Las Vegas, Nevada, Mass Torts Made Perfect, Monsanto Roundup Herbicide Litigation, $289M Jury Verdict & Future Cases
- Yale University’s Greenberg Conference Center, New Haven, Connecticut, Challenging Court Secrecy in Medical Product Litigation, Yale University
- California’s Announcement that Roundup Causes Cancer, OEHHA, and the MDL (Multi-District Litigation), HarrisMartin
- “Disease Mongering and Scientific Misconduct”, Santa Monica College, Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences
- Litigation Update and Trial Analysis Roundtable: “Actos Trial Analysis”, AAJ Plaintiff Trial Lawyers and presented with Mass Torts Made Perfect
- “Case Theories, Challenges and Case Selection Considerations for Your Actos Inventory”, HB Litigation Conferences
Achievements
Other Sources of Feedback About Michael L. Baum
Included on the 2024 Southern California list
Past Lists
- 2023 Southern California Super Lawyers list
- 2022 Southern California Super Lawyers list
- 2021 Southern California Super Lawyers list
- 2020 Southern California Super Lawyers list
- 2019 Southern California Super Lawyers list
- 2018 Southern California Super Lawyers list
- 2017 Southern California Super Lawyers list
- 2016 Southern California Super Lawyers list
- 2015 Southern California Super Lawyers list
- 2014 Southern California Super Lawyers list
- 2013 Southern California Super Lawyers list
- 2012 Southern California Super Lawyers list
- 2005 Southern California Super Lawyers list
Honors
- Listed, Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers
- Who's Who in America
- Who's Who in American Law
- Who's Who in the World
- Aviation Counsel Magazine's List of Recommended High Flyers
- National Air Disaster Foundation Safety Award
- Southern California Super Lawyer, - 2005
- AV® 5.0 out of 5 Peer Review Rated through Martindale Hubbell
- Southern California Super Lawyer, 2012 - Present
- Southern California Super Lawyer, 2013 - 2021
- Product Liability Practice Group of the Year 2020, Law360, 2020 - Present
- Listed in Politico’s Changemakers Series: 5 People Putting Pesticides on the Agenda
- Mass Torts Elite Trial Law Firm of the Year, Finalist, ALM and National Law Journal, 2020 - Present
- Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyer, 2019 - 2021
- The National Trial Lawyers Top 100 Trial Lawyers
- Verdicts Hall of Fame Inductee, The National Law Journal and Verdict Search
- Elite Trial Lawyers Mass Torts Trial Team of the Year, The National Law Journal and The Trial Lawyer Magazine, 2019 - Present
- Top 100: 2019 Southern California Super Lawyers, 2019 - Present
- Trial Team of the Year 2019, The National Trial Lawyers Top 100, Number 1 Verdict in California in 2019, Topverdict.com(Pilliod et al. v. Monsanto Co.), 2019 - Present
- Trial Team of the Year 2019, The National Trial Lawyers Top 100, Top 10 Verdicts in California in 2019, Topverdict.com(Pilliod et al. v. Monsanto Co.)
- Elite Trial Lawyers, Winner Pharmaceutical Litigation, The National Law Journal, 2018 - Present
- Number 1 Product Liability Verdict in California in 2018, Topverdict.com (Johnson v. Monsanto Co.), 2018 - Present
- Top 10 Personal Injury Verdicts in the U.S. in 2018, Topverdict.com(Johnson v. Monsanto Co.), 2018 - Present
- Top 100 Verdicts 2018, ALM, National Law Journal, Verdict Search (Johnson v. Monsanto Co.), 2018 - Present
- Top 10 Product Liability Verdicts in Illinois in 2017, Topverdict.com (Dolin v. GSK), 2017 - Present
- Top 100 Product Liability Verdicts in the U.S. in 2017, Topverdict.com (Dolin v. GSK), 2017 - Present
- The Best Lawyers in America, 2016 - 2021
- Nation’s Top One Percent, National Association of Distinguished Counsel
- Selected to: Southern California Super Lawyers, 2005 - Present
- Aviation Counsel Magazine’s List of Recommended High Flyers, believed by the International Air Transport Association’s Legal Dept. to be one of the most elite lists of aviation law practitioners ever produced
Office Information
Address
11111 Santa Monica Blvd.Ste. 1750 Los Angeles, CA 90025
Phone
Publication
Representative Cases
- In re Air Crash at Charlotte, N.C. on July 2, 1994, 982 F.Supp. 1052 (Dist. South Carolina 1995)
- In re Air Crash at Charlotte, N.C. on July 2, 1994, 982 F.Supp. 1056 (Dist. South Carolina 1996)
- In re Air Crash at Charlotte, N.C. on July 2, 1994, 982 F.Supp. 1060 (Dist. South Carolina 1996)
- In re Air Crash at Charlotte, N.C. on July 2, 1994, 982 F.Supp. 1071 (Dist. South Carolina 1995)
- Ex parte Knight Ridder, Inc., 982 F.Supp. 1080 (Dist. South Carolina 1997)
- In re Air Crash at Charlotte, N.C. on July 2, 1994, 982 F.Supp. 1084 (Dist. South Carolina 1997)
- In re Air Crash at Charlotte, N.C. on July 2, 1994, 982 F.Supp. 1086 (Dist. South Carolina 1997)
- In re Air Crash at Charlotte, N.C. on July 2, 1994, 982 F.Supp. 1092 (Dist. South Carolina 1997)
- Smith v. Cutter Biological, 770 So. 2d 392 (La. App. 4th Cir. 2000)
- Grisham v. Philip Morris USA, 403 F. 3d 631 (9th Cir. 2005)
- Grisham v. Philip Morris USA, 40 Cal.4th 623, 151 P.3d 1151 (2007)
- Grisham v. Philip Morris USA, 54 Cal.Rptr.3d 735 (2007)
- Grisham v. Philip Morris USA, 482 F. 3d 1131 (9th Cir. 2007)
- Collins v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 2008 WL 744070 (Pa. Ct.Com.Pl. 2008)
- Pilliod et al., vs Monsanto Company (2019)
- Hardeman vs Monsanto Company (2019)
- Dewayne “Lee” Johnson vs Monsanto Company (2018)
- Wendy B. Dolin vs GlaxoSmithKline LLC (2017)
- Dorsett v. Sandoz, Inc., 699 F.Supp.2d 1142 (C.D.Cal. 2010)
- Mason v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 596 F.3d 387 (7th Cir. 2010)
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