Current Role
  • Partner, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP
  • Practice focuses on consumer, insurance, and antitrust class actions as well as appellate representation
Recent Success
  • In 2023, Mr. DeStefano was a part of the firm’s team that argued and prevailed before the Arizona Supreme Court in Franklin v. CSAA Insurance, obtaining a unanimous decision in plaintiffs’ favor confirming that people injured by underinsured motorists in Arizona have the right to add together (or “stack”) insurance coverages for multiple vehicles under a single insurance policy. Now, the team is working to recover additional insurance benefits for Arizona residents — many of them seriously injured — who were underpaid by thousands of dollars due to their insurers’ erroneous view of the law before Franklin.
  • John was a part of Hagens Berman‘s team that obtained court approval of a $400 million settlement to compensate Hyundai and Kia owners for misstatement of EPA fuel economy ratings. The firm successfully defended the settlement before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc. Settlement payments averaged $353 for Hyundai owners and $667 for Kia owners.
  • When Continental Casualty Co. decided to seek and impose massive premium hikes on its long-term care insurance customers, John was a part of the Hagens Berman team that filed suit to stop it and correct the abuse. The federal court initially granted Continental’s motion to dismiss, but the firm obtained a published reversal of that ruling from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2020. After the case was remanded, the firm’s team defeated three additional motions to dismiss in similar cases against Continental Casualty. Discovery is ongoing.
  • With the Hagens Berman team, John has helped challenge insurers’ deliberate underpayments of total loss auto claims in ongoing litigation. In these matters, defendant insurance companies’ alleged unfair practices short consumers following serious car accidents in which they are often injured and at their most vulnerable. In early 2022, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey granted the firm’s motion to certify a class of New Jersey consumers challenging GEICO’s use of improper adjustments to lower payments and its failure to pay substantial taxes and fees owed.
  • Mr. DeStefano was a part of the Hagens Berman team, led by managing partner Steve W. Berman, that represented NFL legend Jim Brown in the appeal of his right-of-publicity suit against Electronic Arts for the unauthorized use of his likeness in Madden NFL video games. Shortly after briefing, Electronic Arts agreed to a $600,000 judgment in favor of Brown.
Experience
  • Snell & Wilmer LLP, 2009-2013 
  • American Inns of Court Pegasus Scholar 2012, study of commercial, media, and privacy law with barristers and judges in the U.K.
Recognition
  • 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers, Lawdragon, 2024
  • Rising Star, Class Action/Mass Tort, Super Lawyers, 2015-2017
  • Top Pro Bono Attorneys in Arizona Award, Arizona Foundation for Legal Services & Education, 2013
Notable Cases
  • Gunn v. Continental Casualty Co.
  • Sieving v. Continental Casualty Co.
  • Cheslow v. Continental Casualty Co.
  • Brown v. Continental Casualty Co.
  • Kronenberg v. Allstate Insurance Co.
  • Lewis v. GEICO
  • In re Hyundai & Kia Fuel Economy Litigation
  • Jim Brown v. Electronic Arts Inc.
Publications
  • Co-author, Arizona and Colorado chapters of the ABA’s “A Practitioner’s Guide to Class Actions," 2d edition
Personal Insight

When John’s great-grandfather came from Italy to Boston, he lost his life savings to a man he met named Charles Ponzi. A century later, John takes special pride in protecting the public against broad-based frauds and swindles and the corruption of honest enterprise.