Henry J. Tashman

Henry J. Tashman is the founding partner of DWT's Los Angeles litigation, media and intellectual property practices. He currently is chair of the Los Angeles complex litigation group, which has a website at LosingisNeverCostEffective.com.

By thinking "outside of the box" and devising novel winning procedural and substantive arguments, Henry consistently obtains exceptional results in virtually all areas of complex litigation, for example:

• By suing the sole shareholder of three TV stations for copyright infringement for broadcasts after licenses with the stations had been terminated for nonpayment, Henry was able to pierce the stations’ corporate veils and obtain a $31.6 million jury verdict in copyright statutory damages against the shareholder—over seven times the balance due on the stations’ licenses;


• Obtaining an award of over $200 million in contempt fines against appellant and dismissal under the "fugitive disentitlement doctrine" of his appeals-by-obtaining injunctive relief that (as Henry predicted) appellant disobeyed;


• By arguing that that the jury’s disbelief of a defense witness does not establish the contrary facts, we obtained a complete reversal on appeal of a $3.8 million jury verdict in a whistle blower/wrongful termination suit brought by a senior executive against a major bank and national mortgage lender. (This was the first time this argument was made in a California wrongful termination case);


• Successfully challenged a video games publisher's contractual right to recoup over $15 million in development advances by claiming that its conduct violated the antitrust laws, breached the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and violated California's general prohibition against agreements not to compete;


• Using the "target jurisdiction" doctrine (typically used in defamation cases) to obtain personal jurisdiction for successful copyright infringement and tortious interference claims in excess of $60 million;


• Using federal statutory interpleader, contract and tortious interference claims to permit U.S state and federal courts to declare worldwide ownership of intellectual property rights worth over $25 million and end foreign infringement of those rights;


• Recovered property taken by a former employee (and forced the resignation of the employee's counsel) by asserting that the settlement demands of that counsel constituted extortion;


• Based on a profit participant's challenge of, and interference with, the studio's rights to distribute several motion pictures, we obtained the participant's forfeiture of over $6 million in participations generated from the worldwide distribution of those pictures;


• Making new law, obtained dismissal of antitrust claims against six motion picture studios because plaintiff "recklessly" disobeyed the court's discovery orders, even if plaintiff's conduct was not "willful."

Henry has worked on over 15 trials, ranging from two days to three months in length. Favorable verdicts were entered in nearly all of these trials. Henry won all of the trials where he served as “first chair," obtaining verdicts totaling over $600 million.

Henry also has worked on over 50 appellate matters in state and federal courts throughout the United States, including appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court (arguing against now Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.); arguing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; the California Court of Appeal; the New York State Court of Appeals (New York's highest court) and the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division.

Henry approaches his cases with creativity, tenacity and passion which has paid off in the results he has obtained for his clients. As one of Henry's partner's declared: "Henry is sui generis."