Metropolitan
Information-Enterprise
Wednesday,
January 20, 2021
Particular
Part
PERSONALITY
PROFILE:
JOHN LEROY MORIARITY
Music and Army, Legislation
Enforcement and Reagan, Are Trial Lawyer’s Pursuits
By
Sandra Hong
t the annual conference of the California Trial Attorneys
Affiliation (now often called Client Attorneys of California) in 1973, Los
Angeles chapter President Stanley Jacobs introduced that John L. Moriarity had tried extra private harm instances to verdict
previously yr than another lawyer in California. And Moriarity
had been in regulation observe for under a dozen years.
That distinction—amongst different profession milestones—has prompted
references to him as “the dean of San Fernando practitioners.”
Moriarity insists that it’s merely a nod to his sheer longevity.
It’s “as a result of I’m the oldest, that’s all,” the 88-year-old
says, chuckling.
But earlier than he devoted greater than a half-century to regulation
observe in the identical metropolis he was born and raised, there was a two-year stint in
Texas, a gig alongside Louis Armstrong, and a deep appreciation for music and
historical past.
“Music and the navy have been a really massive a part of my
profession,” he muses.
Commencement
Day
To listen to Moriarity inform it, his regulation
profession was constructed on early inspiration and some fortunate coincidences. He recounts
the day he graduated from UCLA College of Legislation in 1960.
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“I graduated from UCLA at 11 o’clock and obtained a job on the
state legal professional’s workplace at 2 o’clock,” he says. Earlier than even passing the bar, he
began work that very same afternoon as a “scholar legal professional” on the California
Division of Transportation.
“I used to be making $30 extra a month than a real-life entry stage
legal professional on the AG’s workplace,” he remembers.
It wasn’t the one provide he had. There was an
alternative on the FBI, however the pay was decrease—solely $7,000 a yr.
A fellow graduate, one yr forward of Moriarity,
Irvin Schulman, bumped into him after the commencement ceremony and instructed him about
the coed legal professional job at Caltrans. It will lay the groundwork for his
profession as a private harm legal professional.
On the time, the courts have been chipping away at sovereign
immunity, Moriarity says, pointing, particularly, to
the 1961 California Supreme Courtroom opinion in Muskopf
v. Corning Hospital District which ended immunity for hospital districts.
“So, abruptly, they needed to begin worrying about
private harm instances” at Caltrans, he says.
After-College
Jobs
In highschool, he drove a police ambulance for a yr, and
throughout regulation college, he labored as an insurance coverage adjuster specializing in bodily
harm claims, Moriarity recounts, saying:
“So I knew simply sufficient about
private harm to get myself in bother.”
He provides, nevertheless:
“However I knew greater than the 32 different attorneys as a result of they
solely did condemnation work.”
He labored for Caltrans for 3 years, the required dedication
for a scholar legal professional. Throughout that point, Moriarity
was additionally working as an adjuster for Farmers Insurance coverage and was slowly constructing
his personal observe, taking medical malpractice protection instances on the aspect.
His curiosity in regulation traces again to when he was simply 4
years previous. His dad and mom have been divorcing, and his mom employed a lawyer, Charles
Prepare dinner, to signify her. Moriarity remembers taking an
curiosity in the way in which Prepare dinner did his work.
“Watching him on the previous stone courthouse, for some cause,”
he says, the concept of changing into a lawyer himself, “caught on,”
By the fifth grade, he recounts, he determined he was going to
be a lawyer.
Music
and the Army
After he reached highschool in Van Nuys, he determined to enter
the Military Reserve in his junior yr, and was ultimately referred to as for fundamental
coaching in February 1954, lower than a yr after an armistice ended fight in
the Korean Conflict. In the midst of his sophomore yr at UCLA, Moriarity abruptly moved from a campus dormitory to
barracks at Fort Ord close to Monterey.
“After you end the fundamental course, you’re instructed you’ve gotten
three decisions,” Moriarity says. “My first selection was
to go along with a choose advocate basic course” since he knew he needed to pursue a
profession in regulation.
His second selection was to remain within the artillery and climb the
ranks to employees sergeant.
Third was to hitch the Sixth Military Band. Moriarity
had performed cello and trombone within the orchestra and band at Van Nuys Excessive
College.
“Fascinating factor was—which was typical of the U.S.
Military—they despatched me to the Military medical college in Fort Sam Houston in San
Antonio, Texas, conserving in thoughts my three requests,” he says.
He provides that he nonetheless “ended up having a completely
great time for 2 years in San Antonio.”
Shortly after arriving in Texas, Moriarity
organized a dance band he referred to as the Night time Owls. He additionally struck up what would
turn into a lifelong friendship with Don Carey, who arrived at Fort Sam Houston
having simply completed a music diploma on the College of Kansas, and joined Moriarity’s band as a piano participant.
“We performed a lot in San Antonio and so many different locations,”
Carey recollects from his residence in Missoula, the place he retired as a professor of
music on the College of Montana.
Carey remembers how weekends have been crammed with late-night gigs
that wouldn’t permit for a lot sleep. He additionally recollects Moriarity’s
“fierce amateurism” as a musician.
“He was a pushed musical beginner and nonetheless is,” Carey says.
“He actually loves it.
“He not solely desires to hearken to it, but additionally make it and take
half in it. He’s all the time been that method.”
As for Moriarity’s dance band,
Carey says:
“It was not only a enjoyable factor to do for him. He was actually
immersed. And naturally, that basically rubbed off on all of the members of the
band.”
Moriarity made certain the Night time Owls saved up a rigorous efficiency
schedule.
“We performed seven nights every week and typically Sunday afternoon
at varied personal golf equipment, and in San Antonio we had 10 officer golf equipment or
enlisted golf equipment that we performed in,” Moriarity says.
Armstrong,
Christy
He recounts a gig the Night time Owls performed with singer June
Christy, together with the band’s brush with Louis Armstrong.
“It was a bundle deal, and we went in with him,” Moriarity says in regards to the evening they performed in the identical
venue because the jazz legend. “He was taking part in in a single ballroom and we have been taking part in
in one other one,” he explains.
Moriarity saved up the Night time Owls after he returned to Los Angeles in
1956. In Los Angeles, his bandmates have been studio musicians and headliners within the
Hollywood scene.
The lawyer confesses that he hasn’t picked up an instrument
since regulation college, however Carey says Moriarity’s urge for food
for music hasn’t waned since their navy days. When the 2 get collectively, Moriarity is bound to tug out data of all-male quartets
like The Hello-Lo’s and The 4 Freshmen.
“We’ll simply sit and hearken to them,” Carey says. “For a
lawyer, he’s actually enthusiastic about music. He takes it very severely. In case you
have a look at the images he has hanging in his workplace, you’ll see he’s obtained footage
of dance bands and ladies from that point singing.”
As soon as again at UCLA, Moriarity picked
up his research in U.S. and British historical past.
“If I hadn’t gotten into regulation college, I’d have
gotten a PhD in historical past,” Moriarity says. “I
completely beloved historical past.”
However he did get into regulation college, graduated, then handed the
California bar examination in 1961.
Lawyer’s
Circumstances
The lengthy profession in private harm regulation that ensued has
offered Moriarity loads of tales to spin, if not in
entrance of a classroom. He’s prevailed in instances that formed requirements of look after
public entities. One case concerned a uncared for center-lane barrier on
Interstate 5, the place a automobile crossed into the other lane and triggered a
head-on collision.
“The case made it to the Courtroom of Appeals, which made it very
clear that Caltrans needed to preserve the boundaries,” Moriarity
says.
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Moriarity additionally took on a medical malpractice case involving a physician
in Lancaster whose negligence triggered the demise of a younger affected person.
The case was the sort a plaintiff’s harm lawyer goals of, Moriarity says, with a physician defendant who fell in need of
the “Physician Welby” stereotype, a reference to the favored Seventies TV present
that includes a kindly Dr. Marcus Welby, portrayed by Robert Younger.
“It was a traditional instance of the place a plaintiff can win a
case, the place you’ll be able to present the physician was a thief, a fraud, a foul man,” Moriarity says.
Moriarity was capable of present the physician altered the affected person’s medical
data to cowl up any indicators of wrongdoing. The insurance coverage firm solely had the
data that had been scrubbed clear.
“However I had the dangerous ones, the soiled ones,” Moriarty says.
“And as soon as they discovered that out, we have been capable of get well in extra of $1
million.”
One other slam-dunk case was in opposition to a basic surgeon at
Kaiser in opposition to whom Moriarity introduced go well with for a
consumer. The defendant had cleaned up the affected person data, however, once more, Moriarity obtained his arms on the unique information, displaying
negligence.
“These are the nice instances the place you get well damages” which
retains the workplace “doorways open and pay for the overhead for those that come
again snake eyes,” he says.
But, Moriarity, displays, the highs
and lows of plaintiffs’ private harm work isn’t for everybody.
“It’s turn into, an increasing number of, so troublesome, particularly within the
medical malpractice discipline,” he remarks. “The protection has a lot cash they will
simply swamp you.
“I’ve a case in opposition to Johnson & Johnson proper now and
maintaining with them is absolutely one thing. They’ve billions of {dollars} and
right here I’m making an attempt to foot the invoice to maintain up with them.”
One other problem is maintaining with well being care lobbyists in
Sacramento. Moriarity notes how the $250,000 cap on
non-economic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits hasn’t modified for the reason that
Medical Harm Compensation Reform Act was handed in 1975.
“Now why is that?” he asks, answering:
“The rationale, very merely, is the medical career.”
Highly effective well being care lobbying pursuits, together with the
American Medical Affiliation and California Medical Affiliation, “have purchased
the Legislature” with marketing campaign contributions, he asserts. Provided that
“California trial legal professionals have by no means been capable of match what the AMA and CMA
can spend in California,” the lawyer remarks, change isn’t seemingly.
Political
Aspirations
In 1994, after 30 years of working towards regulation, Moriarity ran for an open seat on the Los Angeles Superior
Courtroom. He says of his motivation to run:
“Being a trial legal professional, I skilled actually great
judges—and a few women and men that ought to by no means have turn into judges. I believed I
might make a distinction.”
Regardless of help from main regulation enforcement departments,
unions and newspapers, Moriarty misplaced in a good runoff election in opposition to an
assemblyman.
Terry Friedman was often called having “probably the most liberal voting
document of any assemblyperson on the time,” Moriarity
remarks, “much more liberal than [actress] Jane Fonda’s husband.” Her husband,
now deceased, Was Tom Hayden, who was by then a former Meeting member and a
member of the state Senate.
Moriarity’s marketing campaign, selling regulation and order, “was type of a mistake,”
he says, commenting:
“It will be the identical as operating in the present day in a socialist county,
metropolis, or state as somebody who backs the police division.”
Voters right here in the end determine in opposition to a pro-law enforcement
candidate, Moriarity laments. He says the state’s
political dynamics deterred him from making one other try at operating for
elected workplace.
“Look what simply occurred to our great district legal professional,
Jackie Lacey,” Moriarity says.
Lacey served two phrases as Los Angeles County district
legal professional earlier than being unseated within the Nov. 3 election by challenger George Gascón, who campaigned on guarantees of felony justice
reform.
Lacey’s instant predecessor, Steve Cooley, recollects first
crossing paths with Moriarity across the time he ran
for choose.
“He labored onerous,” Cooley says about Moriarity’s
marketing campaign, which, regardless of worthy efforts, misplaced to an adversary with “vital
political clout.”
Cooley credit Moriarity with
having “good, strong values, the sort that perhaps we don’t see as a lot in the present day as
all of us would really like,” describing Moriarity as
“patriotic” and “a considerate conservative.”
And whereas Moriarity didn’t find yourself
serving in an elected workplace, his contributions via neighborhood and
skilled organizations can’t be ignored, Cooley provides, remarking:
“He belongs to extra teams than anybody I do know. He contributes
to all of the teams along with his time, presence, and loyalty.”
McDonnell
Feedback
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell echoes
related sentiments about Moriarity’s civic
involvement, notably in help of regulation enforcement.
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“He’s a man who’s often called all the time there in help of a great
trigger and anyone who’s prepared to get entangled to profit the neighborhood,”
McDonnell says. McDonnell observes that Moriarity’s
previous aspiration of serving in elected workplace wouldn’t come as a shock,
contemplating his ardour for bridging relations between police and the
neighborhood.
Plus, McDonnell says, “individuals take pleasure in being round him, and it
reveals.”
Lacey additionally highlights Moriarity’s
affable nature, saying:
“He’s outspoken, quick-witted, and pleasant. He all the time
greeted me with a powerful handshake and a smile. He’s a beneficiant individual and a
fierce advocate for the underdog.”
Moriarity acknowledges a seemingly countless record of civic organizations
and nonprofit boards he’s been part of, amongst which embrace the Los Angeles
Police Reserve Basis. Basis President Karla Ahmanson calls Moriarity a “good, old style gentleman” who has helped
the inspiration increase cash and supported varied applications to recruit reserve
cops.
“There’s actually not many like him anymore,” she says.
By way of his work with the police basis, Moriarity met his fiancée, Kelley Nelson, three years in the past.
Moriarity had been married for nearly 50 years to Maria Ann Moriarity, who died of most cancers on Nov. 17, 2009. They’d
six kids: Donald (named after Moriarity’s Night time
Owl bandmate Don Carey), Lloyd, Lynda, Robert, Jack, and Douglas.
Not one in all them confirmed the slightest little bit of curiosity in
changing into a lawyer, he says, however provides:
“Effectively, I obtained two of them into the navy however couldn’t get
any of them serious about regulation or being a peace officer.”
Reagan’s
Speech
Close to the top of 2019, Moriarity
helped ship a life-sized bronze statue of Ronald Reagan to the U.S. Embassy
in Berlin. The embassy is situated subsequent to the Brandenburg Gate, the place Reagan
gave a monumental speech as president.
Reagan’s bronze likeness was a present from the Ronald Reagan
Presidential Basis and Institute, which has dispatched teams to places
all over the world the place Reagan made vital addresses.
“I led the group to Berlin, the place Reagan had requested secretary
Gorbachev to take down the wall—which to me was one in all his most lasting
speeches,” Moriarity says.
Reagan stood on the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987. The
concrete barrier, erected in 1961, separating east and west Berlin, was seen
behind him. Directing remarks to Soviet chief Mikhail Gorbachev, he stated:
“Normal Secretary Gorbachev, when you search peace, when you search
prosperity for the Soviet Union and Jap Europe, when you search liberalization,
come right here to this gate.”
Following that have been his well-known phrases:
“Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this
wall!”
The Reagan Basis’s 2019 entourage to Berlin included
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Moriarity says, as
effectively as basis Govt Director John Heubusch.
The inspiration sustains the Ronald Reagan Presidential
Library and Museum in Simi Valley.
“You stroll in there and also you’ll see my identify on the wall in massive
gold letters,” he says.
“After we began making an attempt to construct the library in 1988,
we needed to construct the library on the grounds of Stanford to be near the
Hoover Establishment, however the socialist professors at Stanford would don’t have anything
to do with us,” Moriarity remarks.
Upon strolling into the library, a customer will hear and see
Reagan making his “A Time for Selecting” speech.
A video monitor performs the speech on a loop.
That speech has specific significance for Moriarity.
Within the Oct. 27, 1964 pre-recorded televised discuss—which might
propel the actor onto the nationwide political stag—Reagan made a case for the
election of the Republican Occasion’s presidential nominee, U.S. Sen. Barry
Goldwater, R-Ariz. Echoing themes of the marketing campaign, Reagan referred to as for “peace and
prosperity” via tax cuts and pared-down authorities, and warned of the
perils of socialism.
“It turned me round fully,” Moriarity,
then a Democrat, says.
Reagan begins the speech by sharing that he had been a
lifelong Democrat till switching course, and goes on to say:
“You and I are instructed more and more we now have to decide on between a
left or proper. Effectively I’d wish to recommend there isn’t any
such factor as a left or proper. There’s solely an up or down….”
“Up” is particular person freedom and manifest future, Reagan says;
“down” is characterised as “the ant heap of totalitarianism.”
Moriarity says the philosophy nonetheless rings true to him 56 years later.
“I’m a powerful believer within the free-enterprise system,” he
says. He factors to founders of enterprise empires resembling Marriott accommodations and
Carl’s Jr. as proof that Reagan’s imaginative and prescient of American exceptionalism stays the
nation’s reply to peace and prosperity.
“That’s how these individuals obtained to the place they’re—they
began from nothing however have been capable of thrive,” he feedback.
As for Moriarity, he continues to
look “up” in his profession. He relates that he has no plans to retire.
“I take pleasure in what I do,” he says.
Feedback:
It’s with honor and satisfaction to acknowledge John Moriarity because the Metropolitan Information-Enterprise 2020 Individual
of the Yr. John’s repute because the “Dean of San Fernando Valley
practitioners” is well-founded as he has proven his completed abilities as a
trial litigator for a lot of many years. His service to every consumer has been within the
highest custom of professionalism and dedication.
As one in all this nation’s proudest patriots, Mr. Moriarity has demonstrated his dedication to women and men
in our armed forces and right here within the Homeland via his monetary help as
effectively as offering his counsel as a board member on the Los Angeles Police
Reserve Basis. It’s on this latter position that John has most impacted the
Los Angeles Police Division. Mr. Moriarity has
strived for years to assist help members of the police reserves as they
volunteer their time within the service to the individuals of Los Angeles.
In closing, the Los Angeles Police Division congratulates
John Moriarity because the Metropolitan Information-Enterprise
2020 Individual of the Yr and desires him continued good well being and success within the
years forward.
—MICHEL R. MOORE
Chief of Police
Los Angeles Police Division
Colonel John L. Moriarity is many
issues, however anybody who has spent even a couple of minutes with him seemingly is aware of that
he’s a patriot of the primary order. That might imply completely different issues to
completely different individuals maybe, however in John’s case, meaning he loves his nation
way over most, and does all that he can to honor it, and make it even
higher. He values extremely his prolonged time within the navy service.
John is a member of extra organizations than one would ever
think about—and he’s lively in every of them. He attends extra occasions of each
description than appears potential. He’s an encourager extraordinaire. He
places individuals collectively who’ve a standard curiosity of some kind.
Music is, and has all the time been, extremely essential to him—each
as a performer and as a listener. The effective arts, of their completely different varieties,
consistently beckon him to their happenings.
He has lengthy been a faithful advocate for Pepperdine
College, and notably its Caruso College of Legislation, and is answerable for
encouraging quite a lot of wonderful college students to attend.
For in extra of 4 many years, he has supported the Legislation
College, and has served on its Board of Guests, and now its successor
group, the Board of Advisors. He and his late spouse
established the Colonel John L. and Maria Moriarity First-Yr
Moot Courtroom Competitors.
John is a most profitable trial lawyer, and an indefatigable
advocate for his purchasers.
It’s extensively recognized that John is a staunch supporter of regulation
enforcement, and Los Angeles sheriffs and police chiefs over time are his shut
buddies. Talking of buddies, John makes them simply and consistently.
Numerous organizations of extensively various description and
function are higher, and more practical, due to Colonel John L. Moriarity.
—RONALD F. PHILLIPS
Senior Vice Chancellor,
Caruso College of Legislation Dean Emeritus,
Pepperdine College
Copyright 2021, Metropolitan Information Firm
