Mr. Blood is a co-founding partner and the firm’s managing partner. For almost thirty years, his practice has focused on complex litigation, including class action litigation. Mr. Blood has tried class action cases and is highly regarded in the field of consumer protection law, including California’s Unfair Competition Law and Consumers Legal Remedies Act.
Before starting Blood Hurst & O’Reardon, Mr. Blood was a partner in Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, LLP and a founding partner in the firm now known as Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, LLP.
Mr. Blood has represented millions of purchasers of food, food supplements and over-the-counter drugs arising out of various advertising claims made by manufacturers and retailers. He has also represented owners of motor vehicles in product liability cases and consumer credit and mortgage borrowers against a number of major lending institutions, including Bank of America, Washington Mutual, Countrywide, GMAC and Wells Fargo.
Mr. Blood has extensive experience litigating against life, auto and other insurance carriers on behalf of consumers. His experience litigating against life insurance companies includes representing owners, holders and beneficiaries of industrial life insurance in race discrimination cases (with class periods dating back to the late 1800’s).
He also represented those holding traditional life insurance policies in market conduct actions such as the “vanishing premium” life insurance actions. Mr. Blood was responsible for one of only two litigated cases where classes where certified in the vanishing premium series of cases. He was one of the few plaintiffs’ attorneys to obtain class-wide recoveries in the “imitation parts” automobile insurance actions.
Mr. Blood has also represented consumers in traditional false advertising actions, those victimized by so-called “negative option” sales practices, and owners of a variety of different types of faulty computer equipment and software from manufacturers.
Mr. Blood has testified before the California State Assembly and State Senate Judiciary Committees, as well as the Assembly and Senate Committees on Banking, Finance & Insurance. He has worked at both the state and federal level with lawmakers and government agencies to shape legislation to protect consumer rights, including lobbying on the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 and working to defeat a California state ballot initiative designed to weaken the class action device.
He practices in both state and federal courts throughout the country, and has represented the interests of consumers formally or informally before the Federal Trade Commission, the California Department of Justice, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office and the California Department of Insurance.
He has worked with the Federal Trade Commission to obtain record setting recoveries for consumers. In In re Skechers Toning Shoes Prods. Liab. Litig. (W.D. Ky.), Mr. Blood’s work with the Federal Trade Commission resulted in the largest consumer recovery in a false advertising action in FTC history.
