HEADLINES
GHW hopes to encourage young high school students at St. Augustine in New Orleans to follow in the footsteps of Charles R. Jones, the first African-American male to ascend to Chief Judge of the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal. GHW funded the "2012 Chief Judge Charles R. Jones Scholarship" to be awarded to a deserving St. Augustine student.
The late Wendell Gauthier’s fight to expose Big Tobacco’s coverup of the addictive properties of nicotine is a significant part of the story of Addiction Incorporated, a docudrama about Victor DeNoble a whistleblower and research scientist at a major tobacco company, who revealed a fact that the industry had been denying for years: that cigarettes were addictive.
GHW attorneys John Houghtaling, James Williams and Celeste Gauthier were inducted into Loyola University’s Society of St. Ignatius.
Attorneys Sean Greenwood and Pat McGinnis were named to H Texas Magazine's list of Top Professionals in Houston.
GHW partner James Williams participated in a roundtable discussion entitled, "Closing the Wealth Gap: Utilizing Minority Owned Businesses as Vehicles for Job Creation and Economic Recovery," on Capitol Hill on September 22, 2011.

Verdicts and Settlements

$246 billion
Tobacco Litigation - Wendell Gauthier led a coalition of 100 law firms which paved the way for the landmark settlement with the states in 1998.

$3.365 billion
Environmental Class Action - 1987 tank car fire contaminates a New Orleans neighborhood.

$346 million
Business Litigation/Breach of Contract - profits lost in failure to transfer computer software rights.

$220 million
Class Action/Wrongful Death - lawsuit filed by the families of 96 victims who died in a fire at the San Juan Dupont Plaza Hotel in Puerto Rico.

$170 million
Wrongful Death - 85 people killed in a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, the second largest loss-of-life fire in U.S. history.

$75 million
Insurance Litigation - insurance recoveries for individual victims of Hurricane Katrina.

$57 million
Commercial Property Damage/Loss of Business - fire destroys the historic New Orleans Fair Grounds.

$26.2 million
Commercial Property Damage/Loss of Business - Hurricane Katrina commercial property settlement for a Metairie high-rise.

$13.5 million
Commercial property damage/loss of business - settlement of property damage claims for high rise buildings in Houston following Hurricane Ike.

$13 million
Wrongful Death - three families whose loved ones were killed when a Pan Am jet crashed into a New Orleans neighborhood.

$12 million
Commercial Property Damage - groundwater contamination caused by radioactive material.

9.25 million
Breach of Contract - joint venture arising out of a clients ownership interest in a power plant in El Salvador.

$7.4 million
Commercial Property Damage/Loss of Business - Hurricane Katrina commercial property settlement for an office building in downtown New Orleans.

$7 million
Industrial Negligence - recovery for a worker severely injured in an industrial explosion.

$5.7 million
Jury Verdict - six-week trial involving a business dispute on behalf of a closely held insurance agency doing business in Puerto Rico.

$5 million
Product Liability - verdict in case involving 95% third degree burns resulting from ignition of flammable vapors by a gas fired water heater.

$4.7 million
Wrongful Death - drunk driver's negligence

$4 million
Jury verdict for a retail center in St. Bernard Parish which was damaged during Katrina.