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Wisner Baum Names Bijan Esfandiari and Timothy A. Loranger Senior Shareholders

Bijan & Timothy
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Wisner Baumn is very happy to announce that firm partners Bijan Esfandiari and Timothy A. Loranger have been elevated to senior partners and members of the firm’s Board of Directors. The attorneys join Wisner Baum’s president Michael L. Baum, vice president and secretary, Ronald L. M. Goldman, and vice president, R. Brent Wisner, as the firm’s senior partners.

“It is with great enthusiasm and pleasure that we can announce the promotion of Tim Loranger and Bijan Esfandiari to the status of Senior Shareholders and their addition to the Board of Directors by unanimous vote of the BHAG shareholders,” stated Ronald Goldman. “They each represent the finest of our firm’s values: outstanding accomplishments, leadership and dedication to a safer, healthier, society that unflaggingly seeks justice for all. It is with confidence that it can be said their addition to the Board will help lead our firm to an even brighter, more successful, future. Congratulations to each of them.”

Bijan Esfandiari | Wisner Baum Senior Partner

Bijan Esfandiari joined Wisner Baum in 2007 as a pharmaceutical product liability attorney. Since his arrival, Bijan’s legal work has helped shape and develop the law for the benefit of those harmed by pharmaceutical and medical devices.

A 2002 graduate of UCLA School of Law, Bijan spent the first five-years of his legal career as a defense attorney at a major national law firm working on a variety of cases spanning multiple disciplines including entertainment law, intellectual property and toxic torts. Discontent with representing corporate polluters and recalling he went to law school to help those who were harmed by the greed and neglect of others, Bijan joined Wisner Baum where he found a committed group of lawyers and colleagues who were dedicated to helping those who were injured and harmed by corporate malfeasance.

During his time at Wisner Baum, Bijan has worked as lead counsel on several cutting-edge pharmaceutical and medical device cases wherein he has helped thousands of clients obtain compensation for injuries they sustained because of defective drugs and devices. Utilizing the discovery process, Bijan has obtained internal corporate documents demonstrating that pharmaceutical manufacturers intentionally hid and concealed dangers associated with their products simply to maintain sales and profits. As way of example, in one case after examining the evidence Bijan had obtained and submitted to the Court, the Court held: “internal GSK documents suggest that Defendant acted with a wanton and willful disregard for the safety of its consumers. Given such evidence, Plaintiffs may be able to establish at trial that Defendant knew of the risks of pediatric use of its drug yet failed to warn solely to increase the commercial profitability of Paxil.” The ruling allowed Bijan’s clients to proceed with claims for punitive damages and resulted in a successful resolution of the case.

Bijan routinely works on challenging cases involving severely injured clients which other firms refuse to handle due to the costs and legal hurdles associated with such cases. His efforts in this regard have resulted in not only helping individuals others in the legal community declined to represent, but in the process Bijan’s efforts have led to precedent setting legal rulings that have benefited all plaintiffs and consumers.

Many of these precedential successes came in the form of defeating pharmaceutical and medical device companies’ claims that they are immune (preempted) from liability by virtue of their products being approved by the FDA. In 2014, Bijan successfully briefed and argued the first and only medical device preemption case at the time before the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. In an issue of first impression, the three-judge panel in McCormick v. Medtronic, Inc., 219 Md. App.485, unanimously agreed with Bijan’s arguments that the device manufacturer was not entitled to immunity and held that plaintiff could proceed with his claims against the medical device manufacturer. This appellate success led to thousands of other similarly injured plaintiffs being able to successfully bring and maintain claims against the device manufacturer.

In a similar proceeding, Bijan successfully briefed and argued the first drug preemption (immunity) case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The three-judge panel in Mason v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 596 F.3d. 387 unanimously agreed with Bijan’s arguments, finding that plaintiffs’ claims against the drug manufacturer were not preempted by federal law.

The significance of these and other landmark rulings cannot be overstated. They ensure that drug and medical device companies who engage in deceptive or impermissible conduct are not entitled to immunity and that they can be held accountable in a court of law for any injuries they or their products cause to consumers.

The son of an infectious disease scientist, Bijan has always been surrounded by members of the medical community from a young age. In addition to the joy he receives from representing and obtaining justice for his clients, a favorite part of Bijan’s legal practice is that it allows him to learn from some of the world’s top medical experts in their respective fields, retained in the pharmaceutical and medical device cases he handles.

Aside from obtaining substantial monetary recoveries for his clients, the cases Bijan and his colleagues at Wisner Baum have worked on have resulted in the public and medical community learning about previously undisclosed risks associated with select drugs, devices, and products, and in certain instances the litigations have resulted in labeling changes being implemented or dangerous products being removed from the market to prevent future consumers and patients from suffering the same harms.

A prolific writer and courtroom advocate, Bijan has had several of his cases published, including but not limited:

Riera v. Somatics, LLC, 800 F. App'x 537, 538 (9th Cir. 2020)

Hricik v. Stryker Biotech, LLC, 89 F. Supp. 3d 694 (E.D. Pa. 2015)

Boutte v. Stryker Biotech, LLC, 67 F. Supp. 3d 732, 734 (M.D. La. 2014)

McCormick v. Medtronic, Inc., 219 Md. App. 485, 101 A.3d 467 (2014)

Dorsett v. Sandoz, Inc., 699 F.Supp.2d 1142 (C.D.Cal. 2010)

Tucker v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 701 F.Supp.2d 1040 (S.D.Ind.2010)

Mason v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 596 F.3d 387 (7th Cir. 2010)

Forst v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 602 F.Supp.2d 960 (E.D.Wis. 2009)

Cunningham v. SmithKline Beecham, 255 F.R.D. 474 (N.D.Ind. 2009)

Knipe v. SmithKline Beecham, 583 F.Supp.2d 602 (E.D.Pa. 2008)

Tucker v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 596 F.Supp.2d 1225 (S.D.Ind. 2008)

Throughout his career, Bijan has received numerous awards and recognition, including:

Timothy A. Loranger | Wisner Baum Senior Partner

Timothy A. Loranger joined Wisner Baum in 2011, concentrating his practice on aviation accidents and ground commercial transportation accidents. As a consumer attorney for nearly 20 years, a pilot, and committed safety advocate, Tim’s varied background in science and mechanics gives him unique insight into proving causation in transportation cases. In his 10 years with Wisner Baum, he has worked on many of the firm’s major transportation disaster cases, several of which culminated in substantial verdicts and settlements for clients.

In 2020, Best Lawyers® named Tim as 2020’s “Lawyer of the Year” for Personal Injury Litigation in Los Angeles, a distinction that can only be earned by one lawyer who receives the highest overall peer feedback in one legal practice area in one metropolitan region. The Lawyer of the Year award exemplifies an exceptional level of trust and respect that a lawyer has earned from fellow attorneys.

Before he became a lawyer, Tim was a Marine who served in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He worked as an aircraft mechanic at both the squadron and intermediate maintenance levels. Tim credits his military service as the perfect preparation for a career as an attorney, where compassion, honor, service, and dedication are essential to building success.

With his military background, it was natural that Tim gravitated toward military accident law. At Wisner Baum, he takes great pride in leading the military accident litigation team. With his exemplary track record of success in these cases, Tim is now widely regarded as one of the nation’s leading attorneys representing members of the military in cases stemming from third-party product liability or negligence-induced aviation and ground transportation accidents.

Tim currently serves as Chairman of the Aviation Law Section of the American Association For Justice, the world’s largest trial bar. He is also a proud member of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (CAALA) Board of Governors, the Consumer Attorneys of California, and the American Association for Justice. CAALA has honored Tim with three Presidential Awards for his work preserving victims’ rights and for his consumer safety advocacy.

Throughout his career, Tim has earned numerous awards and recognition, including:

About Wisner Baum

Wisner Baum is a national award-winning law firm based in Los Angeles, California. For more than 40 years, the firm has earned a reputation for breaking new legal ground and holding negligent corporations accountable in commercial transportation litigation, pharmaceutical drug and medical device product liability, mass torts, class actions, consumer products and whistleblower lawsuits. The firm has obtained some of the largest personally injury and verdicts and settlements in recent history. The firm has earned stellar awards, including Law360’s Regional Powerhouse award and Product Liability Practice Group of the Year. The National Law Journal has twice awarded them with Elite Trial Lawyers Trial Team of the Year and inducted them into the Verdicts Hall of Fame. The firm is also listed in U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms” and has maintained an AV® preeminent peer-review rating by Martindale-Hubbell for decades. In total, the firm has won more than $4 billion in verdicts and settlements.