Introduction
Introduction

Rob Carey is a nationally recognized trial lawyer who has built his career standing up to powerful corporations and delivering results for people whose rights have been violated. He leads high-stakes class actions involving consumer scams, financial fraud, and insurance and contract abuses—cases where significant sums have been wrongfully taken from the public. Rob also accepts a select number of catastrophic personal injury cases in which the issues are compelling and the stakes life-changing, bringing to those matters the same litigation firepower and trial strategy used in major national class actions.

Rob has been retained by multiple State Attorneys General to represent their states in complex, difficult cases, and has been selected to act as lead trial counsel in a federal MDL bellwether case—one that is chosen to go first, to test the strength of claims and defenses in litigation involving thousands of similar claims.

He served as lead trial counsel in a landmark case exposing systemic misconduct in the dialysis industry, where corporate misuse of dialysis solutions led to preventable patient deaths. That trial resulted in a $383.5 million verdict—the largest medical-malpractice verdict in the United States that year. He has also secured class certification in consumer and worker cases involving nearly $2 billion in disputed damages and has litigating cases against some of the largest defense firms and top lawyers in the country, and won, through both a jury and by settlement.

Relentless in his advocacy, Rob is known for developing cases that protect people who were misled, overcharged, or exploited, and for earning the trust of juries in complex, high-value trials across the country.

Current Role
  • Executive Committee Member & Partner, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP
  • Leads the firm’s Phoenix office
  • Selective practice in catastrophic personal injury, insurance bad faith and wrongful death, including trials dozens of significant verdicts in his favor, and many more in settlements.
  • Frequently asked to try complex, high-stakes cases nationwide and to present at CLE programs.
Recent Success
  • Secured the largest medical malpractice verdict of the year, a $383.5 million jury verdict against DaVita Inc. for families of dialysis patients, including three $125 million punitive damages awards.
  • Obtained two jury verdicts for the developer of the Madden NFL video game against Electronic Arts over unpaid royalties, which collectively were dubbed the “Top Trial Verdict of 2013” by The Daily Journal.
  • Working with HB partners, led litigation team securing $95 million class action settlement against Apple for its AppleCare warranty violations, with court calling it an “excellent settlement” on an “untested theory” for consumers who received inferior replacement devices.
  • After cross-examining the CEO and CFO of a pharmacy benefits company, secured jury verdict for client in liability phase of $75 million dispute.
  • Achieved class certification in Arizona for thousands of Allstate Fire policyholders denied stacked UM/UIM coverages, which will allow numerous insureds who already settled to achieve no less than 100% more coverage available, if HBSS succeeds. Several insurers have settled these very claims.
  • Prevailed at 7th Circuit Court of Appeals representing long-term care insurance policyholders against CNA's illicit premium increases, allegedly done to force insureds to drop coverage.  HBSS is advancing these fraud and breach claims in several cases for thousands of insureds nationwide who have paid for coverage for over decades in some cases and when they start to need benefits, their premiums are being increased dramatically.
  • Taken several cases to juries and been rewarded with multiple seven-figure insurance bad faith verdicts with damages exceeding 15x policy limits, including punitive awards and treble damage awards upheld on appeal.
  • Helped initiate and litigate the Toyota Sudden Unintended Acceleration litigation ($1.6 billion settlement) and Hyundai/Kia MPG case ($97 million settlement).
  • Achieved groundbreaking $60 million settlement in Keller/O'Bannon NCAA student-athlete likeness litigation, which was the basis for many other HBSS sports cases, and also helped settle the NCAA concussions litigation.
  • Lead counsel in landmark youth-sports safety litigation: represented Donnovan Hill (paralyzed at age 13 while playing in the Pop Warner Little Scholars, Inc. program) and, alongside partner Rachel Fitzpatrick, secured a seven-figure confidential settlement that catalyzed national reforms in youth-football safety rules. The case was described by the OC Weekly as having “forever changed youth football,” and by the The Washington Post as “unprecedented” and indebted to all who care about protecting children in the sport.
  • Through hard-fought litigation, helped NFL legend Jim Brown recover damages from EA Sports for unauthorized use of Brown’s rights of publicity.
Experience
  • Government Service & Legal Leadership
    • As Arizona’s Chief Deputy Attorney General, Rob Carey was integral in all legal, policy, legislative and political initiatives and actions for a very successful Attorney General's office, and for which he received the Office’s Distinguish Service Award (1996). In this leadership role he not only managed facets of the Office's actions, he helped lead cases as well, including claims involving a $4 billion divestiture and landmark $165 million antitrust settlement. Rob was instrumental in the first comprehensive overhaul of Arizona's criminal code and authored key provisions of Arizona’s Prisoner Litigation Reform Act, which served as the model for a substantial part of the federal Prisoner Litigation Reform Act of 1995 enacted through Senators Dole and Kyl, both of which dramatically reduced frivolous prisoner litigation. He also championed groundbreaking victim rights legislation, including laws requiring DNA testing of sex offenders and mandating that criminals pay for victims' rights costs.
  • Teaching & Judicial Experience
    • Rob continues to serve on the faculty at Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law as an Adjunct Professor, though not teaching full classes anymore, he still, on request, lectures on trial practice, class actions, and sports law. He has taught law and policy courses at multiple universities and served as Judge Pro Tempore in Maricopa County Superior Court, presiding over contract and tort jury trials.
  • Early Career & Private Practice
    • Rob was lucky enough to help on U.S. Senator John McCain’s very first campaign for public office, later working with the then-Congressman’s congressional office (in D.C. and Arizona) before going to law school. As a lawyer in the late ‘90s, he served as trial counsel representing counties in tobacco-related illness claims and acted as special counsel in the landmark tobacco litigation. Since 1997, he has been appointed lead counsel for numerous class actions across various disciplines, including antitrust, consumer fraud, insurance and contract claims, property and intellectual property claims, and specialized statutory claims, federal and state.
Recognition
  • 500 Leading Lawyers in America, Lawdragon, multiple years
  • 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers, Lawdragon, multiple years
  • 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers, Lawdragon, multiple years
  • The Best Lawyers in America, Insurance Litigation, Best Lawyers, multiple years
  • The Best Lawyers in America, Plaintiffs Personal Injury Litigation, Best Lawyers, multiple years
  • Top 100 Trial Lawyer, Arizona’s Finest Lawyers, multiple years
  • Top 100 Trial Lawyer, National Trial Lawyers, multiple years
  • Member of Hagens Berman’s Toyota Sudden Unintended Acceleration team selected as a finalist for Trial Lawyer of the Year, Public Justice, 2014
  • Recognized for outstanding contributions to the justice system, Judges of the Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County
  • Recognized for victims’ rights efforts, U.S. Department of Justice
Notable Cases
  • Rob leads national litigation against OnlyFans/Fenix International, alleging the company deceived subscribers using paid “chatters” who impersonated creators to solicit payments and tips, while also violating user privacy. By taking on one of the world’s largest subscription platforms, he is working to hold digital companies accountable for online consumer fraud and exploitation.
  • Rob leads a nationwide class-action against Continental Casualty Company (CNA) for allegedly raising group long-term care insurance premiums unevenly and contrary to the promises made to policyholders.
  • Rob leads litigation against Paul Mitchell (John Paul Mitchell Systems), which is accused of misleading consumers by branding its hair-care products as “no animal testing” while supposedly selling in China, which requires animal testing for imported cosmetics.
  • Rob is also leading a class-action against Paula’s Choice alleging the skincare company falsely marketed its products as “cruelty-free” while submitting them to animal testing in order to access the Chinese market.
  • Rob represents California policyholders in a class action against Allstate alleging it illegally reduced UM/UIM insurance benefits by taking workers’ compensation offsets not allowed under California law, denying injured drivers coverage they paid for.
  • Rob represents Californians in a class action lawsuit challenging Allstate’s calculation and payment of uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) benefits—alleging breach of contract and bad faith for improperly reducing benefits by deducting workers’ compensation offsets and otherwise underpaying claimants in violation of California law, seeking recovery and injunctive relief on behalf of thousands of affected policyholders.
Other Notable Cases
  • Hyundai/Kia MPG Litigation
  • Toyota Unintended Acceleration Litigation
  • NCAA Student-Athlete Name and Likeness Licensing Litigation
  • Hyundai Subframe Defect Litigation
  • Hyundai Occupant Classification System / Airbag Litigation
  • Hyundai Horsepower Litigation
  • Arizona v. McKesson False Claims and Consumer Protection Litigation (representing State of Arizona)
  • Apple Refurbished iPhone/iPad Litigation
  • Jim Brown v. Electronic Arts
  • LifeLock Sales and Marketing Litigation
  • Rexall Sundown Cellasene Litigation
Publications
  • Co-author, “7 Punitive Damages Strategies,” Trial Magazine, April 2019
  • Co-author, Arizona chapter of the ABA’s “A Practitioner’s Guide to Class Actions”
  • Co-author, Arizona and Colorado chapters of the ABA’s “A Practitioner’s Guide to Class Actions," 2nd edition