Arash Homampour

The welfare check did not find her. Roughly seven hours passed before she received medical treatment, and by then the damage could not be undone: she cannot form and store new memories, and she needs care around the clock.

The hotel's policy called for two well-trained people to conduct a welfare check. Instead one maintenance worker who had never done one was sent alone. He opened the door with a key card and called out, "Hello. Maintenance. Hello." The room was mostly dark. He did not go in. He told the desk clerk he had not heard or seen anybody, and the clerk told her husband that the worker "went in; he checked the room."

At about 4:00 the next morning, her husband drove from Riverside to Dana Point. He reached the hotel at about 5:15 and found her in a coma on the floor.

The trial court granted summary judgment to the staffing company that had supplied the maintenance worker. In a published January 2018 decision, the Court of Appeal reversed: under a negligent-undertaking theory it could not say as a matter of law that the worker owed no duty, and "the scope of a defendant's duty presents a jury issue when there is a factual dispute as to the nature of the undertaking."

Homampour tried the case with Matthew B.F. Biren and John A. Roberts. The jury heard the hotel's room-entry procedures and the medical evidence of what the delay had cost.

The trial theory separated the underlying medical emergency from the harm that followed it. The hotel had not caused the aneurysm. It had undertaken to check on the guest, had not followed its own policy in doing it, and had extended the time before treatment. Time was of the essence, and the delay made the brain injury significantly worse.

In 2022 an Orange County jury awarded more than $60 million; with prejudgment interest, the judgment came to about $90 million. Homampour and Biren brought in Jeffrey I. Ehrlich to defend it on appeal, and on November 7, 2023, a unanimous panel of the Fourth District affirmed the judgment in full. The decision, Homampour said, "culminates a nine-year battle for justice and accountability."

The Heater

Early on January 5, 2011, Kenneth Shinedling woke to a blazing fire in his bedroom. A Holmes radiant heater made by Sunbeam Products had not shut off after it heated up, and it had ignited clothing nearby. His wife, Amy, died in the fire; he and their three daughters sued.

Homampour tried the case to a jury in Los Angeles. Sunbeam, the family alleged, had not told buyers that the heater's advertised automatic safety feature would not turn it off before it started a fire, and had not warned against using it while sleeping, despite a 2005 bulletin from the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The jury found Sunbeam liable for negligent design and failure to warn and awarded $58.65 million. On June 30, 2017, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the inadequate-warning finding and the daughters' bystander claims and emotional-distress damages: the daughters had been present when the fire occurred, and "the injury-producing event was the fire."

Bollards

On April 17, 2007, Ruben Soto and members of his family were having lunch at one of the outdoor tables at the food court of the Burbank Costco. A driver parked beside the food court put his car in reverse, lost control and plowed into the dining area directly behind him. Soto was seriously injured, and his family sued with him.

Costco pointed to tens of millions of customer visits without a similar incident. Homampour's answer was that Costco protected its food courts with barriers at other locations and had none at Burbank.

The jury found Costco liable for the absence of barriers and assigned it twenty-five percent of the fault. In 2012 the Court of Appeal affirmed.

The Word "Domestic"

Octoviano Cortez was hurt during an extensive remodel of a house in Pasadena — walls and a deck demolished, a master bedroom and bathroom added, a carport replaced with a garage, the roof replaced. He was helping remove the roof and had climbed onto the section that remained; he took two steps, and part of it collapsed. He fell and fractured his spine.

The owners argued that the work fell within Cal-OSHA's exclusion for "household domestic service," outside the statute's workplace-safety requirements. The trial court granted them summary judgment, and the Court of Appeal affirmed, treating the project as a noncommercial effort to improve the owners' enjoyment of their home.

Homampour briefed and argued Cortez v. Abich in the California Supreme Court, which reversed in January 2011. Household domestic service, the court held, is tied to maintaining a household and its premises; it does not cover an extensive remodel involving demolition, rebuilding and new rooms.

The court rejected the argument that any noncommercial project for a homeowner's own benefit is exempt, and Cortez's claims went back for further proceedings.

What the Line Fell Into

Early on January 25, 2021, after a rainstorm, a pin on a power pole in Panorama City was dislodged, and a high-voltage line fell into a family's backyard. It electrocuted Ferdinand Tejada, 53, and his daughter Janina, 20.

Homampour represented the surviving family. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power settled for $38 million in 2023 and acknowledged that "serious failures contributed to this tragedy." The pole had not received the up-close inspection that the state requires every five years. Under a corrective action plan, the department overhauled its pole and crossarm inspection program so that inspections comply with state regulations and the timelines regulators set.

In 2018 Jose Ruvalcaba, 45, died after he was struck in the head with a shovel during an altercation with three Victorville street workers. The city stipulated to liability, and no fault was assigned to him. That left a San Bernardino County jury one question: what his life had been worth to his five daughters.

Homampour and Ronan Duggan tried that question in 2022, and the jury answered $33.85 million. The jurors, Homampour said, "saw the true value of this amazing father's love."

Hortencia Andrade v. Norman S. Wright Climatec Mechanical began in 2018, when a pickup making a left turn out of a driveway across traffic struck the motorcycle of David Andrade, 26, and killed him. In closing, Homampour told the jury that the accident reconstruction and the driver's own testimony gave the driver twenty seconds of visibility in which to notice the oncoming motorcycle. On September 16, 2022, a Los Angeles County jury awarded Andrade's parents $36.25 million.

There Is a Light

Homampour's father came to the United States from Iran in the 1960s. Homampour paid his own way through USC, where he earned a degree in economics and finance in 1989, and through Southwestern Law School, where he graduated in 1992 while working nearly full-time for a solo practitioner. He started his own firm, The Homampour Law Firm.

At the start of his career he asked a lawyer to mentor him, and the lawyer said he was too busy. "I made a commitment to make myself available to anyone and everyone," Homampour has said. He teaches other lawyers. He also started his own music label and began producing music and playing dance clubs as a DJ called The Archer.

He founded the There Is a Light Foundation in 2021; it gives micro-grants of $5,000 to $10,000 to people seeking educational opportunities and larger grants to organizations. In 2024 the foundation gave Southwestern Law School $1 million to fund twenty-five $10,000 public-service scholarships a year for four years. "Public service has always been a cornerstone of my career," he said.