Eddy Silverman

Eddy Silverman is a passionate and innovative advocate who specializes in defending corporate retail clients in premises liability and personal injury cases. His expertise also extends to a wide range of matters, including professional liability/malpractice, transportation, and all manner of contract and warranty-breach cases.  With respect to the latter, Eddy is one of the most sought-after attorneys in the state relative to the defense of consumer protection and other similar causes of action involving vehicle manufacturers and dealerships.

Eddy is Chair of the Retail & Hospitality Team at Williams Kastner and previously served as Chair of the firm’s Associate Training Committee. He is a frequent presenter at national conferences on topics related to the defense of retail clients across a wide range of industries and has authored numerous articles on these subjects.

In addition to litigation, Eddy has a wealth of mediation/alternative dispute resolution experience, as both a mediator himself and as an advocate for clients.  He holds a master’s degree in Dispute Resolution from The Straus Institute at Pepperdine Law, which is routinely ranked as the #1 program in the United States by U.S. News and World Report.

Eddy’s excellence in the legal field has earned him recognition on the Washington Super Lawyers Rising Stars list in both 2023 and 2024.

Away from the office, Eddy enjoys movies, music, and spending time with his family.

• USLAW NETWORK
• Defense Research Institute (DRI)
• King County Bar Association
• Washington Defense Trial Lawyers
• Federal Bar Association — Western District of Washington

• Legal Elite 2016, Nevada Business Magazine (June 2016)
• Selected to Washington Super Lawyers Rising Stars (2023 – 2024)

• Pepperdine University School of Law, J.D., M.D.R., 2014
• Lehigh University, B.A. summa cum laude, 2007

• Johnson v. Liquor and Cannabis Board: More Than Just A Fun Case Name, USLAW “Short Takes” Legal Alert, September 2023.
• None of their Business: Identifying and Protecting Privileged Communications, Seattle, Washington, April 2022.
• Negotiation Strategies for Claims Adjusters, Seattle, Washington, July 2021.
• Defense Tactics Unique to Brain Injury Cases, NBI Traumatic Brain Injury Cases: Doctor and Attorney Perspectives, Seattle, Washington, June 2019.
• What Can Outside Counsel Learn from the Insider Perspective?,  2024 USLAW Network Litigation Academy: Expert Chapter, Hosted by Future USLAW Leaders
• Damned If You Do/Damned If You Don’t!  Navigating the Progressively More Litigious World of Retail & Hospitality, Spring 2024 USLAW Network Client Conference

• In or around September 2020, prevailed at trial on behalf of Walmart in the matter of Prater v. Walmart, Thurston County Superior Court Case. No. 18-2-04601-34, during one of the very first trials to go out in Washington during the COVID pandemic. In Prater, the Plaintiff was a 20-year-old shoplifter who was injured in the process of stealing beer and cookies from the store.  He was involved in an altercation with store employees while attempting to steal, which caused a third-party-customer to intervene and cause serious injury to the Plaintiff.  Following a bench trial, the Court found for Walmart on all of the claims asserted, finding that Walmart employees acted reasonably under the totality of the circumstances and awarding Plaintiff zero.

• Obtained defense verdict in $50M premises liability case following 3-week jury trial in September 2022 in the matter of Strout v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. et al., where the Plaintiff sustained paraplegia injuries after falling from a second-story window.  The Plaintiff blamed Walmart and several other Defendants for her injuries, a number of whom settled in advance of trial for substantial money; Walmart did not. After three weeks of trial, the jury returned a defense verdict in favor Walmart in less than an hour. This result was subsequently affirmed in the Washington State Court of Appeals – Division One (No. 84883-6-I).

• In April 2023, obtained dismissal of the Plaintiff’s Complaint without leave to amend related to the Plaintiff’s failure to allege an unreasonably dangerous condition in the matter of  Stroble v. Walmart (W.D. Wash. No. 3:21-cv-05627-DGE).  Plaintiff appealed to The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals where the Court agreed that the Complaint, and even the Proposed-Amended Complaint, failed to allege an unreasonably dangerous condition; however, The Ninth Circuit remanded on the basis that it was hypothetically possible for Plaintiff to cure the Complaint (amendment was not “futile”).  This Ninth Circuit Argument is available online, on YouTube.  In many ways, this was a watermark-type decision in this area of the law, even in spite of the remand, because the decision focused on the issue of failure to plead/prove an unreasonably dangerous condition, a defense rendered considerably more important following the changes to premises liability law ushered in by Johnson v. Liquid and Cannabis Board, 197 Wash. 2d 605 (2021) (en banc) (largely abrogating the lack-of-notice defense in the premises liability context).  Indeed, this would be an argument that would prevail again just a few months later in the Moritz matter discussed below, that time definitively—without appeal or remand.

• Defensed $1M+ racial discrimination case venued in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington in May 2023 in the matter of Starling v. Walmart Inc. (Case No. C21-1156 RSM), where Plaintiffs alleged that two young African-American children were profiled and falsely imprisoned by the store. The Plaintiffs in the case were represented by the former President of the Seattle/King County NAACP. Initially obtained summary judgment on Plaintiff’s discrimination claim pre-trial, then limited Plaintiffs to nominal recovery on single cause of action at trial, amounting to a resounding defense win.

• In July 2023, prevailed on summary judgment in the matter of Moritz v. Walmart (W.D. Wash. No. 3:22-cv-5595-TLF) by arguing that the Plaintiff had failed to marshal sufficient evidence of an unreasonably dangerous condition so as to sustain a claim of negligence. This was such a landmark victory, and so novel in terms of the basis of the relief – failure to plead/prove an unreasonably dangerous condition – that Plaintiff chose not to appeal at the risk of “making bad law” from the plaintiff’s point of view.

• In April 2024, orchestrated the recovery of one of the largest restitutionary attorney fee awards related to opposing counsel’s bad faith in the history of Washington State, at near-$400,000, in the matter of Rinehart v. Keystone RV, et al. (Pierce County No. 21-2-06008-2). The Court of Appeals subsequently affirmed the result in the consolidated matter of Day v. Tacoma RV Center, Inc. (No. 59096-6-II, consolidated with No. 59788-8-II), then The Supreme Court of Washington denied the Appellants’ Petition for Review.  Prior to the fee award, succeeded in obtaining dismissal of all of the claims in the lawsuit and disqualification of the Plaintiff’s attorney.  The offending attorney is presently seeking review in The Supreme Court of The United States.