John C. Fitzpatrick

John Fitzpatrick is a trial lawyer who represents clients around the country in complex disputes including class actions, mass tort litigation, false claims act and qui tam actions, mergers and acquisition litigation, and commercial disputes.   John was trial counsel in one of the only federal consumer class action cases to go to trial, which resulted in a complete defense verdict. 

John graduated from Columbia Law School as a Kent and Stone Scholar and earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame, magna cum laude.  Before law school, John co-founded HotPads.com, a map-based housing search engine, which was acquired by Zillow Group.

Representative Matters

ET Plus Litigation
National counsel, including trial counsel, for defendants, Trinity Industries and Trinity Highway Products, in litigation alleging personal injuries from Trinity's ET Plus guardrail end terminal system in multiple state and federal jurisdictions, class actions, qui tam actions, and other related litigation.

In re Genetically Modified Rice Litigation (MDL, U.S. District Court, E.D. Missouri)
Trial and appellate counsel for Bayer CropScience LP in multi-district litigation and related state court litigation concerning alleged presence of genetically engineered rice in commercial rice shipments. 

Polo v. Federal Signal Corporation (Illinois) 
Obtained a reversal of class certification on interlocutory appeal in litigation regarding firefighters alleging hearing loss from emergency-vehicle sirens.

Mergers and Acquisition Litigation
Represented corporations and boards of directors in challenges to large-scale business transactions, including shareholder challenges to mergers and acquisitions. 

Cases Tried or Otherwise Taken to Judgment

In re: Whirlpool Corp. Front-Loading Washer Products Liability Litigation (U.S. District Court, N.D. Ohio)
Trial counsel, along with Phil Beck and Rebecca Bacon, in bellwether consumer class action trial of plaintiffs' claims of design defect and breach of implied warranty. After three and a half week jury trial, jury deliberated less than two hours before returning complete defense verdict.

Click here to read Bloomberg BusinessWeek article.

Click here to read the American Lawyer article.

Click here to read the Law360 article.

Prologis v. IGT (U.S. District Court, Nevada)
Lead trial counsel to IGT in bench trial on multi-million dollar breach of contract action.

Current Representations

ET Plus Litigation
National counsel for Defendants, Trinity Industries and Trinity Highway Products, in litigation alleging personal injuries from Trinity's ET Plus guardrail end terminal system.