Leslie Sheehan is a Partner in the Los Angeles office of GRSM and a member of the Product Liability, Environmental & Toxic Tort and Aviation practice groups. Her practice focuses on the defense of complex litigation matters. She has over 30 years of civil litigation experience concentrating in the areas of product liability, construction defect, environmental and toxic torts, and premises liability defense. In addition, she has experience in aviation law, insurance coverage, and public utility defense.
Leslie, working in conjunction with other defense counsel in the case, recently obtained a favorable result for a national solvent manufacturer in United States District Court in Massachusetts in a trace benzene case where plaintiff alleged he developed Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia (APL), a rare subtype ofAcute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), as a result of exposure to various kinds of petroleum-based products. After a multi-day evidentiary hearing in the matter of Milward v. Acuity Specialty Products Group, Inc. et al., United States District Court of Massachusetts Civil Action No. 07-11944-GAO, where both sides presented expert testimony on the issue of general causation (whether benzene is a recognized risk factor for this particular disease), Judge George A. O’Toole concluded in his Opinion and Order that plaintiffs’ proffered expert testimony is inadmissible because it did not meet the standard set forth in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 509 U.S. 579 (1993), and it progeny. While reserving their right to appeal, plaintiffs stipulated to a Motion for Entry of Judgment because the Court’s ruling prevented plaintiffs from establishing a causal link between the alleged disease and chemicals at issue. An appeal of the decision is expected. However, the Court’s ruling may serve as a deterrent for plaintiffs claiming a link between trace benzene exposure and certain diseases.
Admissions
- California
- Massachusetts
- U.S. District Court, Northern, Central, and Southern Districts of California
- U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts
Memberships
- Association of Southern California Defense Counsel
- Defense Research Institute
Education
- J.D., Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
- B.A., cum laude, International Relations, University of Southern California
Honors
- Top Rated Lawyer-AV® Preeminent™, Martindale-Hubbell