[4] Hagens Berman has been involved in municipal climate change litigation, suing oil companies on behalf of cities.
[5] Hagens Berman employed the strategy of having cities sue oil companies over damages attributed to climate change.
[8][9] The firm represented the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, New York, and Seattle in suing five global oil companies over climate change.
Hagens Berman sued oil companies, alleging they intentionally misled the public regarding the effect using fossil fuels has on the environment.
[12] In another case, the firm later negotiated a $1.1 billion settlement from Toyota regarding its failure to disclose a defect causing certain vehicle models to accelerate on their own.
[16][17] In 2016, Hagens Berman sued Mercedes, alleging testing showed certain vehicles would emit 10-65 times the legal limit of emissions.
[17] In 2017, Hagens Berman filed lawsuits against General Motors, alleging it designed the Duramax engines to trick emission tests.
[18] In 2011, Hagens Berman filed dozens of lawsuits against Grünenthal on behalf of adults who were born with birth defects allegedly caused by their mothers using the anti-nausea drug thalidomide during pregnancy, in the 1950s and 1960s.
[4][19] Berman claimed the victims only recently became aware that thalidomide caused their birth defects and the statute of limitations did not begin until they discovered the source of their injuries.
[19] Hagens Berman sued Electronic Arts for anti-trust issues related to its exclusivity deals with major sports organizations, like the NFL, for sports-based video games using their teams and players.
[22] Hagens Berman also filed lawsuits against the NCAA over its contract terms limiting the rights of players to transfer to other teams.
[26] Hagens Berman sued Amazon in 2021 alleging it made price-fixing agreements with all five of the largest publishers prohibiting them from selling the same books for a lower price to other retailers.
The award of attorney fees was contentious because defendants that didn't agree to the settlement won the case at the summary judgment phase.
[3][6] In 2006, Hagens Berman itself was ordered to pay $10.8 million for failing their ethical duty of loyalty when it continued lawsuits its clients wanted to settle.
[31] Hagens Berman also led a lawsuit against Google on behalf of Free Range Content, alleging AdSense cancelled accounts just before large payments were due to users.
[33] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hagens Berman sued schools it alleged were continuing to charge students full tuition rates after converting to an online-only academic program due to COVID.