(1917 - 1984)
William Angell Paul Camusi received one of the first seven-figure verdicts in the United States against the City of Los Angeles for a falling tree which injured his client. He was elected President of the Consumer Attorneys of Los Angeles in 1962 and received their Trial Lawyer of the Year award in 1974. He died in 1984.
In a 1979 case of note, Bill was among the attorneys who challenged the punitive damages standard in an action brought against a habitually intoxicated driver who horribly injured their client. The California Supreme Court ruled that the defendant driver acted with malice under the circumstances which disclosed a conscious disregard of the probable dangerous consequences and, accordingly, directed the trial court to reinstate that portion of the complaint which sought recovery of punitive damages. This ruling (Taylor v. Superior Court, 24 Cal.3d 890) overturned the then twenty-one-year old appellate court decision of Gambos v. Ashe and held that punitive damages could be recovered in a personal injury action against an intoxicated driver.
