McKENNON LAW GROUP PC.

Insurance Bad Faith, ERISA and Business Litigation Attorneys

McKennon Law Group PC has offices throughout California, and handles cases all over the State, including the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco and the Central Valley.

When you need an attorney, choosing the right law firm is the most important decision you will make. We founded McKennon Law Group PC for one purpose: to provide our clients targeted, effective representation geared to get the best possible results. Our single-minded focus is to achieve our clients’ objectives in an aggressive yet professional manner.

We are counted among California’s leading insurance, ERISA, business, and consumer attorneys. We have arbitrated, tried, appealed, and resolved hundreds of disputes on all lines of insurance - life, health, disability, property/casualty, commercial general liability, professional liability, officers and directors liability, employment practices liability, homeowners and business owners property and liability. We have also litigated disputes involving insurance and real estate agent/broker liability, class actions, serious injury and wrongful death, and other consumer and general business matters, and we have recovered millions of dollars in judgments and settlements for our clients.

Office

20321 SW Birch St., Suite 200
Newport Beach, CA 92660

Two men found guilty for selling U.S. company’s technology

A federal jury found two men guilty Wednesday of economic espionage involving the theft and sale of a U.S. company’s technology to a competitor controlled by the Chinese government.

The jury returned the verdicts against Robert Maegerle and Walter Liew.

They were accused of stealing Delaware-based DuPont Co.’s method for making titanium oxide, a chemical that fetches $17 billion a year in sales worldwide and is used to whiten everything from cars to the middle of Oreo cookies.

A federal jury found two men guilty Wednesday of economic espionage involving the theft and sale of a U.S. company’s technology to a competitor controlled by the Chinese government.

Prosecutors said DuPont was unwilling to sell its method to China, so it was stolen and sent to a company called Pangang Group Co. Ltd., according to testimony during the diplomatically dicey proceedings. The jury heard six weeks of testimony.

Prosecutors alleged that Pangang’s factory is the only facility inside China known to be producing titanium oxide the DuPont way, which uses chlorination.

Man pleads guilty to sea cucumber smuggling charge

Federal prosecutors in San Diego say a man has pleaded guilty to charges he smuggled 100 pounds of dried sea cucumber into the United States from Mexico.

Sea cucumbers are leathery-skinned marine animals used in some folk medicine practices.

United States Attorney Laura E. Duffy says Cheng Zhuo Liu (chuhng joo-oh lee-oo), a resident of Chula Vista, admitted to tucking the sea cucumbers into the spare tire area of his car before crossing the border last October.

According to the US attorney's office, their market value was between $5,000 and $10,000.

The particular species Liu had is protected under international trade rules, and requires a permit for import.

Driver pleads guilty in deadly bus stop crash

A driver who plowed into a Riverside bus stop, killing a woman and a 7-year-old girl, has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

The Press-Enterprise reports 46-year-old Joe Williams was ordered Thursday to serve six months in custody of the Sheriff's Department, but his sentence could include a work-release program in lieu of jail time.

Williams was indicted after prosecutors told a grand jury that he had a history of blackouts seizures and should not have been driving.

Authorities say Williams, a parking enforcement agent, blacked out at a red light on Dec. 28.

When motorists behind him honked their horns, Williams accelerated, veered up onto the shoulder of the road and crashed into a bus bench.

Twenty-eight-year-old Melissa Bernal and 7-year-old Aniya Mitchell were killed.

Coast Guardsman guilty in sexual misconduct case

Coast Guard officials in New Orleans say a petty officer has been convicted and sentenced on charges involving sexual assault and possession of child pornography.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher C. Bush's court martial was held in Norfolk, Va.

A Coast Guard news release said the 28-year-old Bush was convicted Friday on four violations of a Uniform Code of Military Justice article dealing with rape and sexual assault and one involving child pornography.

The crimes involved a junior Coast Guard woman and a civilian woman. They happened between January 2010 and May 2013 while Bush was stationed at a unit in New Orleans. The Coast Guard said it was not releasing the name of the unit to protect the privacy of the victims.

3 California men plead guilty in alleged pot grow

Three Northern California men are each facing up to ten years in prison after pleading guilty to charges that they damaged federal conservation land while allegedly growing marijuana.

Prosecutors say Chou Vang, Vang Pao Yang and Pao Vang, all of Eureka, each entered their pleas in federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday to one count of willful injury to federal property.

The men were accused of clearing away trees and vegetation, using fertilizers, and failing to properly dispose of trash while growing pot in the summer of 2012 in the King Range National Conservation Area along California's Lost Coast. The area provides habitat for four federally-listed threatened species, including Chinook and Coho salmon.

As part of a plea deal, prosecutors say they dropped marijuana cultivation charges. The men are scheduled to be sentenced in July.

Court weighs securities fraud class-action cases

The Supreme Court is considering whether to abandon a quarter-century of precedent and make it tougher for investors to band together to sue corporations for securities fraud.

The justices hear arguments Wednesday in an appeal by Halliburton Co. that seeks to block a class-action lawsuit claiming the energy services company inflated its stock price.

A group of investors says it lost money when Halliburton's stock price dropped after revelations the company misrepresented revenues, understated its liability in asbestos litigation and overstated the benefits of a merger.

Justices threw out the company's first attempt to block the lawsuit in 2011. But Halliburton is now urging the court to overturn a 25-year-old decision that sparked a tidal wave of securities-related, class-action lawsuits against publicly traded companies and has led to billions in settlements.

The court's 1988 decision in Basic v. Levinson says shareholders who claim they were defrauded by false statements in securities filings don't have to prove they actually relied on the statements. Rather, the court reasoned that any misrepresentation would be reflected in the current stock price. Even if investors are not aware of the misstatements, they are presumed to be aware of them because they affect the stock price.

This presumption, known as the "fraud-on-the-market theory," has become the driving force for modern class-action securities cases. But some economists have questioned whether this theory makes sense anymore, saying it doesn't account for the sometimes random and arbitrary nature of stock trading.