Commercial Litigation | Personal Injury And Wrongful Death | Aviation Accidents
Products Liability | Medical Malpractice | Oil And Gas Royalty Litigation
Public Interest Litigation
Robert P. Schuster, P.C., is a law firm devoted exclusively to complex commercial litigation and personal injury cases, including business torts, intellectual property disputes, patent infringement, oil and gas royalty litigation, traumatic brain injury, brain injury, carbon monoxide poisoning, and natural gas pipeline explosions.
Commercial Litigation
Bob Schuster has assisted clients with a broad range of commercial litigation and business concerns. His approach to the cases has been tailored to the needs and circumstances of the client. Some cases have been able to be resolved without resorting to the courts---through negotiation and subsequent drafting of commercial transactional documents. Other cases have required trials. The types of cases have been varied: business torts, patent infringement, misappropriation of intellectual property, banking fraud, antitrust, franchise protection, oil and gas lease and assignment conflicts, and oil and gas royalty litigation.
PERSONAL INJURY AND WRONGFUL DEATH
El Paso Pipeline Explosion. On August 19, 2000, an interstate natural gas pipeline exploded in southern New Mexico and killed 12 family members. The family was spending the weekend by the Pecos River camping and fishing. Together with the Blenden Law Firm of Carlsbad, New Mexico, Bob Schuster represented the families of five of the people who were killed by the explosion. Experts who investigated and reviewed the case concluded the pipeline was severely corroded internally. The section of pipe that failed had never been inspected, tested, or cleaned for five decades. The case was concluded in 2002 approximately one month before it was to go to trial. The amount of the settlement was confidential, but it was the largest personal injury settlement in the history of New Mexico and one of the largest ever achieved in the nation. Schuster also has filed a related case on behalf of 26 firefighers who were injured when they responded to the explosion scene. Details
Carbon Monoxide Gassing.
On August 2, 2001, two hotel guests were gassed by carbon monoxide at the Snake River Lodge & Spa in Teton Village, Wyoming, a hotel that Vail Resorts owned and managed through its subsidiary corporations. The guests --- Dr. and Mrs. Randall Williams --- were attending a medical conference at the resort. Dr. Williams, a urologist from Columbus, North Carolina, was killed and his wife, a cardiac surgery nurse, suffered permanent brain injury from the poisoning. The hot water for the hotel was supplied by a propane-fired boiler, which was equipped with a safety shutdown switch to prevent dangerous levels of carbon monoxide from being produced. The hotel had located a dryer vent too close to the air intake for the boiler. Lint from the dryer vents was sucked into the boiler's air intake, clogged the burner screen, and thereby starved the boiler of needed oxygen. With insufficient oxygen, combustion of the propane was incomplete, and carbon monoxide was produced as a byproduct of the incomplete burning. Under those circumstances, the safety shutdown switch would activate and turn off the boiler so that carbon monoxide would not be produced.
When the safety switch was triggered, it caused the boiler to shut down, which then resulted in complaints from guests that their showers were cold. The hotel's response was to place a jumper, or electrical bypass, across the safety switch (thereby disabling it) so that the boiler would not turn off. Hot showers were preserved, but guest safety was dangerously sacrificed. A perfectly safe hot water boiler had been converted into a deadly carbon monoxide generator. When Dr. and Mrs. Williams checked into the hotel, they were assigned to a room directly above the exhaust for the boiler, which had a safety shutdown switch that had been jumpered for more than four months. The carbon monoxide, a colorless, odorless gas, was sucked into their room through the air conditioning ducts, and they were asphyxiated.
Bob Schuster --- together with Nick Murdock of the Murdock Law Firm, P.C., of Casper, Wyoming --- represented Mrs. Williams for her personal injury case and the family of Dr. Williams for the wrongful death case. Both cases were consolidated for trial in the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming, and the jury returned a verdict of $17.5 million --- the largest personal injury verdict in Wyoming's history. See Details concerning both of these cases. See Carbon Monoxide Facts for additional information on the medical aspects of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Truck Collision. An 18-wheel semi-truck collided with three vehicles on Interstate 15 in southern Utah. Family members were traveling together in the three vehicles on their way home to California after visiting relatives in Utah. Two little girls were killed, and 12 other family members sustained serious injuries. The case was filed in Utah state court and was settled on the eve of trial. Bob Schuster filed the case against the trucking company responsible for the deaths and injuries. The truck driver had falsified the "rest and mileage" logs required to be maintained by federal regulations. He testified in his deposition that --- even though he saw the vehicles pulled off on the shoulder of the interstate --- he took his eyes off the road as he reached down to get a pack of cigarettes. The falsified logs demonstrated the safety hazard created when truck drivers violate federal "sleep and rest" rules. The collision was so violent that the family's vehicles exploded when the truck hit them.
During the course of his career, Bob Schuster has represented hundreds of plaintiffs and injured people in personal injury and wrongful death cases from states throughout the country including Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.
AVIATION ACCIDENTS
Hoover v. Bell Helicopter Textron et al. On April 3, 1994, a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter (Bell 206B3) crashed in the Ruby Mountains of Nevada. The passengers were spending the Easter weekend on a heli-ski vacation with Frank Wells, President of Disney, and other friends. Bob represented Mike Hoover, the sole survivor of the crash and an Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker. He also represented the estate of Hoover's wife, Beverly Johnson, who died in the crash and who had been one of the most prominent mountaineers in the nation. Frank Wells, Paul Scannell, a heli-ski guide, and Dave Walton, the pilot, also were killed. Expert witnesses concluded that the crash was caused by a design defect in the Jet Ranger. Engine flameout could occur when small amounts of snow were ingested by the intake of the jet engine. Bell had not installed an auto-relite as standard equipment in the helicopter —-- a safety measure that would have allowed the engine to re-lite after it had been extinguished by the snow. The case was settled before trial for a confidential amount, but after the settlement Hoover and Schuster sent letters to all owners of Bell 206B3 helicopters warning them of the circumstances that led to this tragedy. A card was included with the letter that could be sent to Bell to request specific information about its test data on engine flameouts from snow ingestion. They also sent a letter to the president of Bell asking him to personally make sure that changes were made in the design and manufacture of the helicopter. Copies of this letter were sent to a number of associations and groups so that if a similar tragedy occurred, it would be very clear that Bell had been specifically asked to incorporate the safety measures. The efforts made in the case and the warnings to the public of the safety risks after it was settled resulted in the case being honored as a finalist for a prize by the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. Bradley L. Booke of Las Vegas, Nevada, was co-counsel with trial attorney Bob Schuster.
Schuster is a member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and has represented people injured in both fixed-wing and rotor aircraft crashes.
PRODUCTS LIABILITY
Defective Drug. Schuster represented a little boy and his family against a major pharmaceutical manufacturer. The boy's mother had taken a pill sold by the manufacturer to determine if she was pregnant. The hormonal pregnancy test had been marketed as a safe method for determining if a woman was pregnant. But the company had failed to warn of the risk of birth deformities to the unborn child. It was designed to be taken in the early stages of pregnancy, at the very time that the fetus was beginning to develop arms and legs in utero. The child was born with severe limb deformities. The case was settled for a confidential amount after two weeks of trial.
Bob Schuster has represented clients who were injured by defective products in cases against automobile manufacturers, drug companies, aircraft manufacturers, anesthesia and medical device companies, heart pacemaker manufacturers, and oil field equipment manufacturers.
MEDICAL MALPRACTICE
Obstetrical Negligence. For more than two decades, Bob Schuster has represented children and their parents for prenatal or birth injuries caused by medical malpractice. Cases have included failure to diagnose prebirth conditions; misuse of Pitocin, a drug used to induce labor; misuse of forceps during delivery; and failure to safely monitor the mother and child during delivery. Many of these cases involved children who suffered oxygen deprivation in the minutes or hours before birth, which led to severe and permanent brain injury. Fetal heart monitors are used during most deliveries. The monitors produce a tape or "strip" that permits the doctors and nurses to evaluate the condition of the unborn child by recording the baby's heart rate as it responds to the mother's contractions. Confronted with evidence of the fetal distress, the medical personnel did not take appropriate steps to intervene and protect the child from harm. Trial attorney Bob Schuster has represented families in Georgia, Wyoming, Missouri, Utah, Idaho, and Montana for the devastating consequences that follow from these birth injuries.
As a result of his work in medical malpractice and personal injury cases, Bob Schuster has represented clients in other medical malpractice cases, including surgical negligence; anesthesia malpractice; failure to diagnose infections; failure to timely diagnose brain tumors that resulted in a child's blindness in one case and a man's paralysis in another; failure to properly diagnose spinal meningitis, which led to a child's deafness; orthopedic malpractice; overdosage of Gentamicin (an antibiotic) which caused severe vestibular damage; and failure to diagnose cardiac symptoms, which resulted in the patient's death.
As a result of his work in medical malpractice cases, Bob Schuster has been invited as a guest speaker at medical and legal conferences around the nation, including California, Florida, Georgia, and Wyoming.
OIL AND GAS ROYALTY LITIGATION
Wyoming Royalty Payment Act. Together with Nick Murdock of the Murdock Law Firm, P.C., Casper, Wyoming, Bob Schuster represents royalty interest owners who have brought suits against oil and gas companies alleging violations of the Wyoming Royalty Payment Act. The cases also request class-action certification for royalty payees who were not paid in accordance with the provisions of the Act.
Schuster has been involved with oil and gas law since he started his practice in Casper in the early 1970s.
PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION
Little Granite Creek. Together with Hank Phibbs of Jackson and Karin Sheldon of the Sierra Club Environmental Defense Fund, Bob Schuster sued oil companies that were planning to drill for oil and gas in a wilderness area in the mountains outside Jackson, Wyoming. Philip Hocker --- a member of the Sierra Club's national Board of Directors from 1980-1986 --- also was instrumental in the case. Their efforts resulted in cancellation of the drilling plan and the inclusion of the lands that were to be developed into the Gros Ventre Wilderness Area. The lands are now protected from development and will remain as a permanent part of the nation's wilderness system.
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