Christopher Chorba

Chris Chorba is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and a member of the firm’s Litigation, Class Actions, Appellate and Constitutional Law, Health Care and Life Sciences, and Legal Malpractice Defense Practice Groups.  He has substantial experience litigating a wide range of complex commercial matters at the trial and appellate level in California and throughout the country.

Class Actions

Mr. Chorba specializes in defending consumer class and representative actions involving the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, California’s Unfair Competition and False Advertising Laws (Business & Professions Code § 17200 and § 17500), and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act (California Civil Code § 1750 et seq.).  Mr. Chorba’s litigation and counseling experience includes work for companies in the automotive, entertainment, food and beverage, technology and computer software, telecommunications, insurance, health care, retail, and utility industries.

Representative Matters

• Argued successfully for the immediate application of amendments to California’s Unfair Competition Law (Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200) before the trial and appellate courts, and prepared amicus briefs in the key cases before the Supreme Court of California on these issues (Californians for Disability Rights v. Mervyn’s, LLC, 39 Cal. 4th 223 (2006); In re Tobacco II Cases, 46 Cal. 4th 298 (2009)).
• Secured the dismissal of more than one dozen class, representative, and complex actions on the pleadings, and successfully defended these dismissals on appeal (see, e.g., Jamgotchian v. Scientific Games Corp., 371 F. App’x 812 (9th Cir. 2010); Wright v. General Mills, No. 08-1532, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90576 (S.D. Cal. Sept. 30, 2009); ZAP v. DaimlerChrysler AG et al., No. B193331, 2008 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 1392 (Cal. Ct. App. Feb. 21, 2008), review denied (Cal. May 14, 2008); McKinniss v. General Mills, No. 07-2521, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96107 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 18, 2007); Pocino v. Jostens, Inc., No. B181449, 2006 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 3852 (Cal. Ct. App. May 3, 2006)).

Selected Publications

• Gibson Dunn’s 2010 Fall Update on Class Actions: The Plaintiffs’ Bar on the Move, BNA Class Action Litigation Reporter, October 22, 2010
• American Bar Association, A Practitioner’s Guide to Class Actions, “Other Due Process Challenges to Class Device” (2010)
• Products Liability Roundtable, California Lawyer (March 2010)
• Contributor, “California Unfair Competition Law and Business & Professions Code Section 17200,” California Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law, 4th ed., Antitrust and Unfair Competition Section of the State Bar of California (2010)
• The Removal and Remand Questions: Does Federal Jurisdiction Exist?  And Where Is The Grass Greener?, ABA 10th Annual Class Actions Conference, October 2006

Selected Presentations

• Class Action & Litigation Trends, 14th National Conference on Consumer Finance Class Actions & Litigation (ACI), January 2012
• Consumer Attorneys of San Diego Fourth Annual Class Action Symposium, October 2011
• Recent Trends: Including a Discussion of Tobacco II and Prop. 64 & Other Issues Specific to California, 10th Annual Class Action Litigation Conference (Bridgeport), April 2011
• Class Action Developments and Settlements & UDAP Update, 15th Annual Consumer Financial Services Institute (PLI), April 2010
• False Advertising Class Actions in California After In re Tobacco II Cases, ABA Private Advertising Litigation Subcommittee Webinar, February 2010
• Vigorously Challenging and Defeating Certification, ACI Third Annual Defense Counsel Forum on Positioning the Class Action Defense for Early Success, September 2009
• California’s Proposition 64: An End to Section 17200 or a New Beginning? Lawseminars Class Actions Conference, May 2006

Other Representative Matters

Appellate and Constitutional Law

• Secured the reversals on appeal of judgments totaling $295 million in three certified class actions in New Mexico and California involving installment payment plans for auto insurance policies (Nellis v. Farmers Ins. Co. of Ariz., No. 29,295, 2011 N.M. App. LEXIS 114 (N.M. Ct. App. Sept. 20, 2011); Nellis v. Mid-Century Ins. Co., 2011 N.M. App. Unpub. LEXIS 344 (N.M. Ct. App. Sept. 20, 2011); Troyk v. Farmers Group, Inc., 171 Cal. App. 4th 1305 (2009)).
• Represented a utility company in having a city ordinance declared unconstitutional in violation of the Contract Clause by a Federal District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and obtained and defended a substantial award of attorneys’ fees for the client (So. Cal. Gas Co. v. City of Santa Ana, 202 F. Supp. 2d 1129 (C.D. Cal.), aff’d, 336 F.3d 885 (9th Cir. 2002)).  Represented same client in similar dispute against another municipality, and secured favorable summary judgment ruling and award of attorneys’ fees (So. Cal. Gas Co. v. City of Alhambra, No. 10-8635, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107514 (C.D. Cal. June 6, 2011)). 

Health Care and Life Sciences

• Secured dismissal of Unfair Competition Law class action brought against one of the nation’s largest Pharmacy Benefits Managers (PBMs), on the ground that the state statute upon which plaintiffs based their claims was unconstitutional (Bradley v. First Health Servs. Corp., No. B185672, 2007 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 1625 (Cal. Ct. App. Feb. 28, 2007), review denied, 2007 Cal. LEXIS 6365 (Cal. June 13, 2007)).  Defending client in parallel federal proceedings currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
• Represented client in coordinated JCCP class action proceedings challenging prescription pricing practices of PBMs, and after extensive litigation, obtained dismissal of all claims (In re Pharmacy Benefits Managers Cases, JCCP 4307).
• Obtained dismissal on the pleadings in a putative class action against Aetna involving average wholesale pricing (AWP) reimbursement in pharmacy contracts (Elliot Plaza Pharmacy, LLC v. Aetna U.S. Healthcare, Inc., No. 06-623, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21160 (Mar. 16, 2009)).

Defense of Law Firms

Mr. Chorba has represented AmLaw 200 law firms in several complex litigation matters, including claims of legal malpractice.  He has defended several prominent international law firms and their lawyers against claims arising from the “unfinished business” doctrine of Jewel v. Boxer in more than a half-dozen adversary proceedings, including matters in the Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP and Heller Ehrman LLP bankruptcies.

Other Complex Commercial Litigation

• Assisted in the defense of a complex fraud and civil conspiracy action brought by the California Insurance Commissioner, which resulted a favorable defense verdict on five of six liability claims and all claims for monetary damages following a lengthy federal jury trial spanning several months, and a post-verdict order rejecting any punitive damages.
• Defended a similar action brought by the California Attorney General, which resulted in a favorable decision by the Supreme Court of California (State of California v. Altus Fin., 36 Cal. 4th 1284 (2005)).
• Represented major motor vehicle manufacturer in shareholder class action litigation, bondholder litigation and derivative litigation arising out of drivers’ reports of “unintended acceleration.”  Assisted team in securing the dismissal of bondholder and derivative actions, and secured dismissal of foreign-law claims in federal securities class action (In re Toyota Motor Corp. Securities Litig., No. 10-922, 2011 WL 2675395 (C.D. Cal. July 7, 2011)).

After graduating cum laude from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in 1996, Mr. Chorba received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2001, where he served on the Editorial Board of the Virginia Law Review.  He is admitted to practice before all state and federal courts in California, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court of the United States.  Each year since 2004, Los Angeles and Law & Politics magazines selected Mr. Chorba for inclusion in their “Super Lawyers–Rising Stars” publications for Southern California.