Gerard Cedrone is a shareholder in the Industrial and Consumer Product Liability Practice Group in the Philadelphia office of Lavin O’Neil Ricci Cedrone & DiSipio. Since graduation from law school, Mr. Cedrone has devoted his entire professional career to Product Liability defense work. He concentrates his practice in automotive products liability, industrial and consumer products liability, insurance defense of various products, toxic torts, automotive warranty litigation, as well as dealership bankruptcy and contract issues.
Mr. Cedrone has served as national coordinating counsel, national and regional trial counsel and lead trial counsel for several defendants in high-profile product liability and toxic tort matters involving the automobile, locomotive, appliance and heating equipment industries. For the past 18 years, he has served as national and regional counsel in automotive products liability and toxic tort litigation. Also, Mr. Cedrone has supervised, handled and argued appeals in state and federal courts nationwide.
Examples of the scope of Mr. Cedrone’s trial experience include:
· Automotive - representing many of the world’s largest car manufacturers involving catastrophic injuries, including a severely burned woman in a post collision fuel-fed fire; a paraplegia case involving alleged faulty seatbelt and seat backs; severe brain damage after a crash; and brain damage due to alleged brake failure
· Diesel Locomotives and Electric Trains
· Heavy Equipment, including forklifts and excavators
· Swimming Pool Manufacturers
· Consumer Products, including lawnmowers, dishwashers, dryers and shower glass doors
For much of his career, Mr. Cedrone has traveled extensively to non-English speaking countries to educate companies on how best to understand and manage in the U.S. regulatory and product liability environment. He often defends foreign companies whose principal places of businesses include China, Japan, Korea, United Kingdom, Mexico, Sweden, Canada and Germany when litigation arises in the United States.
Mr. Cedrone is admitted to courts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York: the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania; the District Court of New Jersey and the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York. He is admitted to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.
Mr. Cedrone graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from LaSalle College. He earned his Juris Doctor from Temple University School of Law.
He is an active member of many bar and client-related industry associations, including the American, Philadelphia and New York Bar Associations; International Association of Defense Counsel; American Board of Trial Advocates; Product Liability Advisory Council; Pennsylvania Defense Institute, Temple Inn of Court and the Defense Research Institute. He currently serves as Judge Pro Tempore for the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.
Mr. Cedrone has been an invited keynote speaker before the American Bar Association, Defense Research Institute, Product Liability Advisory Council, American Conference Institute and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute on product liability, engineering and ethical issues. In 2007, he was the co-author of a paper entitled “The Admissibility of Statistics in Product Liability Actions” as published in the ABA publication “The Brief.” He was also the co-author of “Recent Developments in Pennsylvania Product Liability Law – 2008” course materials, published by the Pennsylvania Bar Institute
