Felicia C Curran - Oakland, CA

Overview

Attorney Felicia C. Curran has represented Californians seeking fairness in elder abuse and nursing home neglect, employment law and sexual harassment cases for more than 20 years. In that time, she has established an extensive record of judgments, verdicts and settlements that testify to the intelligence, work ethic and creativity she provides to her clients.

Ms. Curran has long been interested in issues of fairness in the larger society and in her own backyard. She has targeted her practice toward righting wrongs her Bay Area clients have endured in the care facilities, in the workplace, at school and elsewhere.

Prior to graduating in 1987 with a juris doctorate from the University of California Hastings College of the Law, Ms. Curran was in a doctoral program in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was also a teaching assistant in philosophy and logic. Her special interests were ancient philosophy, metaphysics and philosophy of language.

After graduating from law school, Ms. Curran practiced criminal law briefly and then worked for the Oakland Unified School District, where she litigated employment and personal injury cases involving teachers and students. She realized that she strongly identified with the innocent victims of negligent and wrongful conduct, and "switched sides," becoming a plaintiff's lawyer representing victims exclusively ever since.

Some of her significant victories include:

• Olivia Deloney vs Integral Senior Living in which she obtained a pretrial settlement of $1,900,000 for neglect and wrongful death of a 96 year-old woman who was assaulted by another resident of the dementia care facility she was living in at the time.
• A $1,500,000 settlement for a man who had to have his leg amputated as a result of an infected pressure ulcer on his foot he developed at a skilled nursing facility.
• A $1,000,000 settlement after jury trial for an elderly man with dementia and schizophrenia man who had been dumped by a nursing home at an unlicensed rooming house in West Oakland.
• Meriola Gotthardt v AMTRAK 191 F.3d 1148 in which Ms. Curran and co-counsel obtained a combined jury verdict/equitable relief award of $1,025,000 plus an additional award for attorney fees for a female engineer who was forced off her job due to sexual harassment
• Cook v Lennox Healthcare of San Pablo in which she obtained a judgment by default of $3,279,463 million dollars after an evidentiary hearing in an elder abuse case."

Ms. Curran is committed to workplace justice for employees, and represents clients in a variety of situations involving on-the-job discrimination, wrongful termination, sexual harassment, employer retaliation, whistleblowing, medical and pregnancy leave. She represents employees only, and not employers. In 1998, she became interested in elder and nursing home abuse when her mother developed decubitus ulcers (bed sores) after surgery in a hospital. Her mother made a complete recovery, but the experience left a lasting mark, and elder abuse has been one focus of her practice since that time.

She is a member of the State Bar of California, Consumer Attorneys of California, the Alameda Contra Costa Trial Lawyers' Association and the Alameda County Bar Association. She is a member of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) Elder Justice Advocates program.