About Gary K. Kwasniewski
LA Attorney
Gary K. Kwasniewski
Partner, attorney
Gary Kwasniewski is one of the named partners at the law firm of Viau & Kwasniewski that practices law in the Los Angeles area of California. He has handled 100’s of cases in the California Civil courts State and Federal over the last 36 years. He is a very experienced, successful, pre-eminent lawyer who dedicates himself to helping his clients in their cases in the most difficult times of their lives.
Gary specializes in catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, insurance coverage and insurance bad faith cases.
Such cases include:
· Industrial accidents
· Construction accidents
· Truck accidents
· Automobile accidents
· Products liability/defective products
· Toxic exposure injuries
· And insurance disputes
Gary’s products liability experience includes successfully handling cases involving chemicals, explosives, guns, solvents, PCBs, EMFs, cars, seatbelts, insecticides, indoor air pollutants, caustics, solvents, fumigants, defective packaging, farm machinery, forklifts, industrial explosions, bottled gases, military ordnance, bicycles, climbing equipment, hydraulic hoses, high pressure gas hoses, medical devices, and other products and chemicals
Gary also has extensive successful experience in insurance coverage disputes handling all types of insurance, including: Homeowner, Automobile, Motorcycle, Theft, Commercial Liability Policies, Truck Policies, Cargo Policies, Health Care Policies, Life Insurance Policies and Disability Policies. Viau & Kwasniewski has been very successful in cases involving insurance company refusals to pay, under payment of claims, refusals to defend, delay, and abuses of the appraisal, Examination Under Oath, and policy cancellation processes. Complex insurance dispute and insurance bad faith cases in California
Serious Injury Cases
Gary Kwasniewski has successfully litigated and tried cases involving heavy earthmoving equipment & construction accidents involving bulldozers, wheel tractor scrapers, wheel loaders, track loaders, excavators, wheel dozers, motor graders, asphalt removers, loader backhoes, trenchers and skid steer loaders. These cases involved serious injuries such as extensive third-degree burns, paralysis from spinal cord injuries, de-gloving injuries, brain injuries, respiratory injuries, amputation, fractures, and/or cancer from exposures to carcinogens.
Gary was selected as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California for 2013 by the Los Angeles/San Francisco Daily Journal for the work he did successfully bring an insurance case to the California Supreme Court against the insurance industry. The case was decided unanimously in our client’s favor based on our legal briefing and successful legal arguments. The case is a published California Supreme Court decision, Zhang v. Superior Court.
Gary Kwasniewski is a pre-eminent “AV rated”, lawyer, listed in Super Lawyers, a member of CAALA the largest plaintiff lawyer association.
Gary Kwasniewski is admitted to practice in the California State Courts, the Federal District Courts in California and the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is also admitted to practice in New York and has a license to practice in Ohio (presently inactive).
Additional Background of Gary Kawaniewski
Gary Kwasniewski graduated from Clarkson University in 1973, a very well-regarded private engineering college in Potsdam, New York, with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering.
In July 1973, Gary joined the Procter & Gamble Company in one of its research and development divisions at its corporate headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. At Procter & Gamble he learned how to apply science and engineering in the real world as well as learning about high-speed high volume manufacturing processes, personnel management, and marketing in one of the largest and most successful international companies in the world. He was promoted and led teams of engineers and technicians in the development of large volume manufacturing processes that were transformed into multi-million-dollar manufacturing plants.
Gary gained valuable experience as an engineer and R&D manager. After attending law school at night for four years while working full time in research and development at Procter & Gamble, he graduated in 1985 from Salmon P. Chase College of Law of Northern Kentucky University. He passed the Ohio and California bar exams in 1986. After 14 years as an engineer, manager and scientific researcher, Gary voluntarily left his position at Procter & Gamble and moved to Los Angeles. He began actively practicing law in 1988 in California at a medium sized law firm where he defended hospitals in medical malpractice and wrongful termination cases.
In 1989, Gary Kwasniewski joined the large litigation and trial firm of Haight, Brown and Bonesteel, where he defended major corporations in serious personal injury, toxic exposure and products liability actions.
In 1994, Gary joined Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold in their Los Angeles office, where he continued his practice of defending large corporations in serious personal injury, toxic exposure and products liability actions. He was promoted to a partnership position in 1998 at Sedgwick.
In 2000, Gary voluntarily left his partnership position at Sedgwick to use everything he learned working defending large corporations for the benefit of individuals/plaintiffs. He started the Los Angeles law firm of Viau & Kwasniewski with his wife, Jeanette Viau, an experienced insurance bad faith litigator and now represents and helps individuals in serious personal injury, products liability, toxic exposure and wrongful death cases, and individuals and small businesses in insurance bad faith and coverage dispute matters.
Since starting the firm of Viau & Kwasniewski Gary and Jeanette have obtained numerous successes for their clients in 7 figure and 8 figure results.
Call me at (213) 842-8164, or send me an e-mail to gkk@vklawyers.com.