Timothy G. Blood
Contacts
Mr. Blood is a co-founding partner and the firm’s managing partner. For almost thirty years, his practice has focused on complex litigation, including class action litigation. Mr. Blood has tried class action cases and is highly regarded in the field of consumer protection law, including California’s Unfair Competition Law and Consumers Legal Remedies Act.
Before starting Blood Hurst & O’Reardon, Mr. Blood was a partner in Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, LLP and a founding partner in the firm now known as Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, LLP.
Mr. Blood has represented millions of purchasers of food, food supplements and over-the-counter drugs arising out of various advertising claims made by manufacturers and retailers. He has also represented owners of motor vehicles in product liability cases and consumer credit and mortgage borrowers against a number of major lending institutions, including Bank of America, Washington Mutual, Countrywide, GMAC and Wells Fargo.
Mr. Blood has extensive experience litigating against life, auto and other insurance carriers on behalf of consumers. His experience litigating against life insurance companies includes representing owners, holders and beneficiaries of industrial life insurance in race discrimination cases (with class periods dating back to the late 1800’s).
He also represented those holding traditional life insurance policies in market conduct actions such as the “vanishing premium” life insurance actions. Mr. Blood was responsible for one of only two litigated cases where classes where certified in the vanishing premium series of cases. He was one of the few plaintiffs’ attorneys to obtain class-wide recoveries in the “imitation parts” automobile insurance actions.
Mr. Blood has also represented consumers in traditional false advertising actions, those victimized by so-called “negative option” sales practices, and owners of a variety of different types of faulty computer equipment and software from manufacturers.
Mr. Blood has testified before the California State Assembly and State Senate Judiciary Committees, as well as the Assembly and Senate Committees on Banking, Finance & Insurance. He has worked at both the state and federal level with lawmakers and government agencies to shape legislation to protect consumer rights, including lobbying on the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 and working to defeat a California state ballot initiative designed to weaken the class action device.
He practices in both state and federal courts throughout the country, and has represented the interests of consumers formally or informally before the Federal Trade Commission, the California Department of Justice, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office and the California Department of Insurance.
He has worked with the Federal Trade Commission to obtain record setting recoveries for consumers. In In re Skechers Toning Shoes Prods. Liab. Litig. (W.D. Ky.), Mr. Blood’s work with the Federal Trade Commission resulted in the largest consumer recovery in a false advertising action in FTC history.
Education
- George Washington University, J.D. (1990)
- Hobart College, honors, Bachelor of Arts in Economics (1987)
Representative Cases
Since 2010, some of Mr. Blood’s court-appointed leadership positions include:
- Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(g) in Mullins v. Premier Nutrition Corp. (N.D. Cal.)
- Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(g) Class Counsel in Corvello v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (N.D. Cal.)
- Class Counsel Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(g) Class Counsel in Rikos v. The Procter & Gamble Co., (S.D. Ohio; Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(g)
- Class Counsel in Godec v. Bayer Corp. (N.D. Ohio)
- Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(g) Class Counsel in Johns v. Bayer Corp. (S.D. Cal.)
- Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(g) Class Counsel in In re Skechers Toning Shoes Prods. Liab. Litig. (W.D. Ky.)
- Plaintiffs’ Liaison Counsel and Steering Committee member by the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in the multidistrict litigation In re Sony Gaming Networks and Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig.
- Class Counsel by the district court for the District of Massachusetts in In re Reebok Easytone Litig.
- Class Counsel in Serochi v. Bosa Dev. Cal. by the San Diego Superior Court; Co-Lead Class Counsel by the Los Angeles Superior Court in In re Toyota Motor Cases, (Toyota Unintended Acceleration Consolidated Litigation)
- Co-Lead Class Counsel by the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in the multidistrict litigation In re Hydroxycut Mktg. and Sales Practices Litig
- Co-Lead Class Counsel by the United States District Court for the Central District of California in Johnson v. Gen. Mills, Inc.
- Co-Lead Class Counsel by the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in Hartless v. Clorox Co.
- Class Counsel by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Smith v. Wm. Wrigley, Jr. Co.
Mr. Blood has acted as lead counsel in a number of “functional food” false advertising class actions, including cases against General Mills and The Dannon Company filed in federal courts around the country. The Dannon litigation resulted in the largest settlement in food industry history for false advertising.
He was lead trial counsel in Lebrilla v. Farmers Ins. Grp., Inc. (Cal. Super. Ct., Orange Cnty.) a multistate class action which settled after a month long trial and just before closing arguments and resulted in recovery for the class and significant conduct changes.
Mr. Blood has been involved in a number of precedent-setting appellate decisions in areas that include consumer and insurance law and class action procedure. These appellate decisions include:
- Rikos v. The Procter & Gamble Co., 799 F.3d 497 (6th Cir. 2015) (class certification)
- Corvello v. Wells Fargo Bank, NA, 728 F.3d 878 (9th Cir. 2013) (consumer protection and banking)
- Fitzpatrick v. Gen. Mills, Inc., 635 F.3d 1279 (11th Cir. 2011) (class certification, consumer law and false advertising)
- Westwood Apex v. Contreras, 644 F.3d 799 (9th Cir. 2011) (CAFA jurisdiction)
- Kwikset Corp. v. Super. Ct. (Benson), 51 Cal. 4th 310 (2011) (consumer law and false advertising)
- Martinez v. Wells Fargo Home Mortg., Inc., 598 F.3d 549 (9th Cir. 2010) (banking and preemption)
- Troyk v. Farmers Grp., Inc., 171 Cal. App. 4th 1305 (2009) (insurance law)
- Haw. Med. Ass’n v. Haw. Med. Serv. Ass’n, 148 P.3d 1179 (Haw. 2006) (health insurance)
- McKell v. Wash. Mut. Bank, Inc., 142 Cal. App. 4th 1457 (2006) (banking law and consumer law)
- Santiago v. GMAC Mortg. Grp., Inc., 417 F.3d 384 (3d Cir. 2005) (consumer and banking law)
- Lebrilla v. Farmers Grp., Inc., 119 Cal. App. 4th 1070 (2004) (automobile insurance and class action procedure)
- Moore v. Liberty Nat’l Life Ins. Co., 267 F.3d 1209 (11th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 535 U.S. 1018 (2002) (life insurance and civil rights)
- Kruse v. Wells Fargo Home Mortg., Inc., 383 F.3d 49 (2d Cir. 2004) (consumer and banking law)
- Lavie v. Procter & Gamble Co., 105 Cal. App. 4th 496 (2003) (consumer law and false advertising)
Leadership, Membership & Honors
Mr. Blood has been an executive officer of the Consumer Attorneys of California and currently serves on its board of directors and on the board of directors of its statewide Political Action Committee. He is a long-time member of the Consumer Attorneys of San Diego and was the 2015 President of the Consumer Attorneys of San Diego, a member of the Orange County Trial Lawyers Association and a member of the American Association of Justice. In 2018, Mr. Blood was awarded Consumer Advocate of the Year by the Consumer Attorneys of San Diego. In 2007, he was a finalist for the Consumer Attorneys of California Lawyer of the Year award for his trial work in a multistate class action against Farmers Insurance.
Mr. Blood is a founding member of the San Diego ESI Forum, a group of state and federal judges, civil litigators, criminal defense lawyers and prosecutors working to educate the bench and bar about electronically stored information, including discovery, ethical issues and best practices.
In 2014, Mr. Blood was named a “Titan of the Plaintiff’s Bar” by the national legal publication Law360. Mr. Blood was elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He has been named a “Super Lawyer” since 2006 and has an “AV” rating from Martindale Hubbell.
Mr. Blood is also the Legislative Column Editor for Trial Bar News. Mr. Blood is also a founding member of the San Diego ESI Forum, a group of judges and lawyers devoted to teaching legal professionals in federal and state court about electronic discovery.
Mr. Blood is a frequent continuing legal education speaker on topics that include complex litigation, class action procedure, consumer fraud, false advertising, financial fraud litigation and insurance litigation. Mr. Blood also is frequently consulted by the media. He has been interviewed for stories by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, CBS Radio and National Public Radio, among others, and has appeared on Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, and affiliates of all of the major network on behalf of his clients.
Mr. Blood is admitted to practice in all courts in the state of California, the U.S Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeal for the Third, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits, and the United States District Courts for the Northern, Eastern, Central and Southern Districts of California, the Eastern and Western Districts of Arkansas, the Northern District of Illinois, and the Eastern District of Michigan.
Timothy G. Blood online at 