Attorney Profiles

Ronald L. M. Goldman represents plaintiffs in personal injury and wrongful death cases involving airline, general aviation, helicopter and air ambulance accidents as well as commercial ground transportation crashes including bus, train and truck accidents.

He also handles pharmaceutical drug product liability cases.

Truck Accident Litigation
Speeding
Truck Accident Fatalities
Catastrophic Injuries

Truck Accident Trial:

Baum Hedlund's most recent truck accident trial was conducted by Ron Goldman in December of 2006, in which our firm successfully brought to trial a commercial truck accident case in Ohio where our clients were awarded over $7,000,000 for the loss of their son, a single young adult. The jury found Tyson Foods, Inc., liable for the death of Daniel Brumfield, 22, who was killed when a Tyson Foods truck driver hit Mr. Brumfield's pickup truck head-on, on a two-lane road near Crestline, Ohio, on May 29, 2004. The truck pushed the pickup backwards nearly the length of two football fields before it came to rest.

Six million of the award was for the wrongful death of Daniel Brumfield and $1 million was for the pre-death emotional distress suffered by Daniel, recognizing the tremendous suffering that he must have endured while watching the truck come straight toward him and then crush him.

This is a significant verdict since Daniel was a single man with no dependents. He was not financially dependent on his parents and neither they, nor his brother, were dependent on him for economic support. The value the jury found was purely for the loss of Daniel's comfort, society, love, and affection and for the grief that the family has suffered.

The case was tried by Ronald L. M. Goldman, senior trial counsel for Baum Hedlund, his partner and co-counsel Clark Aristei, and trial team member and partner Robert F. Foss.

Aviation background:

Ron Goldman has been handling aviation disaster cases for more than 30 years and has been a private pilot since 1980. Mr. Goldman has handled a wide variety of sophisticated litigation, at both the trial and appellate levels including personal injury, product liability, domestic and foreign airline and general aviation cases, etc.

He has represented more than a thousand clients and has been lead counsel in hundreds of litigated cases including aviation. Among Ron's trials are leading aviation and product liability cases which resulted in aviation law changes and improvements in aviation safety. At Pepperdine School of Law, as an adjunct Professor for 21 years, Ron developed and taught courses in Torts and Aviation Accident Law. He will bring to your case his years of experience and expertise, an understanding of the issues and the law which uniquely affect your case, and his wide breadth of experience as a trial lawyer, appellate attorney, professor, expert witness, and neutral hearing officer.

Ron Goldman is the lead trial attorney for Baum Hedlund and he is the attorney in charge of the firm's aviation team. He is Board Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocates as a Certified Civil Trial Advocate.

Mr. Goldman handled his first aviation safety case when he represented the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization during a major "sick-out" event in 1969. He defended the air traffic controllers' interests in aviation safety in order to improve the working conditions of the controllers who were experiencing dangerously excessive stress levels by the conditions of their employment.

He continued fighting for aviation safety improvements when he litigated the crash of a British European Airways Hawker Siddeley Aviation passenger jet near London in 1972, and he has handled aviation disaster cases ever since.

Ron served as a member of the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee for the September 11, 2001 aircrash cases. One of his most recent aviation trials involved the crash of a Bell helicopter on behalf of the families of three firefighters. (Baum Hedlund successfully changed aviation product liability law in an earlier Appeals Court decision on this case.)

One of Baum Hedlund's most significant aviation litigation achievements came about when, as part of the settlement agreement from the January 8, 2003 Air Midwest Flight 5481 crash in Charlotte, North Carolina, the companies accepted responsibility and publicly apologized to the families for the crash in 2005.

Baum Hedlund's clients' case was the last to resolve. Although a substantial monetary settlement was also involved, the clients' primary focus had been to require accountability by the defendants, either by trial or by public apology, for the operation, maintenance and design deficiencies that caused the aircrash. A trial was avoided as a result of the apology. Baum Hedlund's lead negotiator and trial counsel for this settlement was Ronald L. M. Goldman. Michael L. Baum, Paul J. Hedlund and John A. Greaves also worked on this case.

Mr. Goldman is a Founding Member of the World Association of Law Professors of the World Peace Through Law Center, a member of Public Justice, the American Bar Association, International Bar Association, World Jurist Association, Los Angeles County Bar Association, Lawyer-Pilots Bar Association, Lawyers Professional Liability Bar Association, Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles and The American Association for Justice.