Personal Injury / Medical Malpractice Attorneys in Salt Lake City, Utah
The legal skills and dedication of the commercial litigation, personal injury, and medical malpractice attorneys at the Salt Lake City, Utah law firm of Dewsnup, King & Olsen have been recognized by the lawyers' peers and various legal ratings groups.
- Ralph L. Dewsnup
- Colin King
- David R. Olsen
- Edward B. Havas
- Ruth Lybbert
- Paul M. Simmons
- Alan W. Mortensen
- Tawni J. Anderson Sherman
- John C. Hansen
- Dewsnup, King & Olsen
Ralph L. Dewsnup
One of the leading personal injury attorneys in Utah, Ralph L. Dewsnup is the President and a founding member of Dewsnup, King & Olsen. Mr. Dewsnup received a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, from the University of Utah in Finance and his Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University in 1977.
Mr. Dewsnup has been a senior lecturer and adjunct professor of law, teaching medical malpractice law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University. He is admitted to practice before all Utah courts, both federal and state, and has also been admitted to practice before the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the Utah State Bar, the Salt Lake County Bar Association, the American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Utah Trial Lawyers Association (UTLA), the Federal Bar Association and the American Inns of Court, having served as President of UTLA and of the Aldon J. Anderson American Inn of Court (VII). He is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the American Inns of Court Foundation, a national legal organization that promotes excellence, professionalism, civility and ethics, with a nationwide membership in excess of 25,000 attorneys, judges, and others involved in the legal profession.
Mr. Dewsnup has chaired the Prelitigation Task Force of the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing for the state of Utah, which helped to develop medical malpractice prelitigation procedures. He also chaired the subcommittee for drafting the first set of medical malpractice pattern jury instructions for Utah and is currently a member of the Utah Judicial Council's community drafting a second edition of Model Utah Jury Instructions. He also served as a member of the Utah Judicial Council's Committee to Improve Jury Service that made recommendations for changes to Utah's jury selection and service system. He is also a federal court-approved mediator and arbitrator for Utah.
He is the recipient of the Utah Trial Lawyers Association's Outstanding Achievement Award and the A. Sherman Christensen Award of the American Inns of Court Foundation (presented in the Supreme Court of the United States), has been selected by his peers for listing in The Best Lawyers in America, and has been given an AV rating, the highest possible, from the Martindale-Hubbell directory.
In addition to his involvement in the negotiation and/or trial of hundreds of personal injury cases involving automobile accidents, medical malpractice, and defective products, Mr. Dewsnup served for more than 39 years as a member of the Utah Air National Guard, from which he retired with the rank of Brigadier General (USAF). He has received numerous military awards and decorations, including the Distinguished Service Medal.
Colin King
Colin King is a founding member of Dewsnup, King & Olsen and helps lead the firm's team of personal injury and medical malpractice attorneys in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mr. King received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics, magna cum laude, and his law degree from the University of Utah.
Mr. King's practice is devoted to personal injury and wrongful death cases in the fields of medical malpractice, product liability, workplace injury, civil rights, and motor vehicle accidents. He is a passionate advocate of victims' rights before the courts and in the legislative arena, where he actively promotes legislation to hold wrongdoers accountable.
Mr. King is a member and a past president of the Utah Trial Lawyers Association. He continues to sit on the Board of Governors. He is a member of the Utah State Bar; the Salt Lake County Bar Association; the American Association for Justice; Trial Lawyers for Public Justice; and the Federal Bar Association.
Mr. King is a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. He has been selected by his peers as a member of The Best Lawyers in America in personal injury law since 1993 in plaintiffs' medical malpractice and product liability. He is a member and current Utah Chapter president of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), a national trial lawyer organization composed only of trial lawyers with significant jury trial experience. He has been given an AV rating, the highest possible, for many years from Martindale-Hubbell, a respected national attorney and law firm directory.
Mr. King has obtained several of Utah's largest and most significant jury verdicts in product liability and other complex tort cases, including the first eight-figure tort verdict in the state's history. He has obtained many multimillion-dollar settlements in personal injury and death cases. He is often an invited lecturer on leading-edge topics of tort law to trial lawyers in Utah and elsewhere.
David R. Olsen
David Olsen is a shareholder of Dewsnup, King & Olsen and a premier commercial litigation attorney. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Management from Brigham Young University, where he received the Wall Street Journal Award as Outstanding Business Student. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Utah College of Law in 1976.
Mr. Olsen's practice concentrates on representing plaintiffs in insurance bad faith and complex tort litigation, where he has obtained numerous multimillion-dollar judgments. He has been the lead attorney in over 20 appellate decisions defining many areas of Utah law, including the definition of proximate cause, the enforceability of compulsory arbitration provisions, the constitutionality of governmental immunity and the enforcement of settlement agreements. His experience also includes contract, real estate, and RICO litigation, including a recent multimillion-dollar verdict in a condemnation case.
Mr. Olsen is a member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum. He was also selected by his peers as a member of The Best Lawyers in America, and has been awarded an AV rating, the highest possible, from Martindale-Hubbell. He is a frequent speaker to professionals on legal issues.
Edward B. Havas
Well respected among other personal injury and medical malpractice attorneys, Edward Havas ("Ed") is a founding member of Dewsnup, King & Olsen. Born in Ogden, Utah, Ed graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from Weber State University in 1979. He earned his Juris Doctorate degree in 1981 from the University of Utah College of Law, where he was a member of the Order of the Coif legal honor society. He was admitted to practice before the state and federal courts of Utah and the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1981.
Since 1983, he has focused his practice on representing victims in negligence, product liability, medical malpractice, and other catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases. Ed is a member of the Utah State Bar, the Salt Lake County Bar Association (and its Litigation Section), The American Association for Justice, and the Utah Trial Lawyers Association, of which he is a past president and current Board of Governors member. He is also a member of the American Inns of Court. For several years, Ed has held an AV rating (the highest possible) from Martindale-Hubbell, a respected national lawyer and law firm directory.
Since 1988 Ed has served as volunteer judge pro tem in the Salt Lake County Third District Court, Small Claims Division, sitting monthly to hear small claims court cases. Ed is also an arbitrator in medical malpractice cases and sits on the United States District Court's approved panel of mediators, where he volunteers his time to mediate federal cases. He currently serves on the Utah Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on Rules of Evidence. He has published articles and presented at seminars and presentations on legal matters, and has been actively involved in legislative affairs to preserve the civil justice system and access to the courts.
Ed enjoys flying for both recreation and business. An instrument-rated pilot, he has put his aeronautical knowledge to use in several aviation cases. He is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Utah Arts Festival and enjoys the arts in their many forms. He also enjoys motorcycling, scuba diving, and traveling.
Ruth Lybbert
Ruth Lybbert, a Utah native, graduated from the University of Maryland Law School in 1986 and began her law practice with the Utah Attorney General's Office. She joined Dewsnup, King & Olsen in 1990 and became a shareholder of the firm in 1992. Her practice focuses on representing people who have been injured or killed through medical malpractice, defective products or negligence.
Ruth is a past president of the Utah Trial Lawyers Association (UTLA), a professional organization dedicated to holding wrongdoers accountable for their actions and to preserving trial by jury. She chairs the Judicial Conduct Commission, the body charged with investigating complaints against Utah judges. She formerly served on the Utah Supreme Court's Advisory Committee for Professionalism. Ruth is a director of the Deseret News Publishing Company and of the Workers Compensation Fund of Utah. She has an AV rating, the highest rating given by Martindale-Hubbell, an organization that rates lawyers and law firms across the nation.
A skilled medical malpractice and personal injury attorney serving Utah, Ruth has been involved in complex, multi-district litigation, in which she represented hundreds of clients. She has tried cases in both federal and state courts, and negotiated many large settlements in personal injury and death cases.
Paul M. Simmons
A native of California, Paul graduated magna cum laude from Brigham Young University in 1977 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and a minor in Spanish. After working as an editor for several years, he returned to school and received his juris doctorate from the University of Utah College of Law in 1985, where he was a member of the Utah Law Review and the Order of the Coif legal honor society.
Paul was admitted to practice in Utah state courts and the United States District Court for the District of Utah in 1985 and in the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court in 1989.
From August 1985 through October 1988 and from December 1994 through January 1996, Paul clerked for the Honorable Bruce S. Jenkins, Chief Judge and later Senior District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah. Paul served on the district court's Advisory Committee on the Local Rules of Practice from 1989 to 2003. He currently serves on the Utah Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on Model Utah Jury Instructions.
Paul is a member of the Utah State Bar and its Appellate Practice Section. From 1995 to 1996, he was a member of the editorial board of Voir Dire, a publication of the Litigation Section of the Utah State Bar. He is also a member of the American Bar Association and its Litigation and Torts and Insurance Practice sections.
Paul is also a member of the American Association for Justice (AAJ) and the Utah Trial Lawyers Association (UTLA) and has edited and contributed articles to the Utah Trial Journal, published by UTLA.
Paul's areas of expertise are complex brief writing and appeals. He has briefed or argued some 40 appeals in Utah and federal courts. Reported decisions in which he has appeared as counsel include Parks v. Utah Transit Auth., 2002 UT 55, 53 P.3d 473; McCoy v. BlueCross BlueShield of Utah, 2001 UT 31, 20 P.3d 901; Nuñez v. Albo, 2002 UT App 247, 53 P.3d 2; House v. Armour of Am., Inc., 886 P.2d 542 ( Utah Ct. App. 1994), aff'd, 929 P.2d 340 ( Utah 1996); and Kleinert v. Kimball Elevator Co., 854 P.2d 1025 ( Utah Ct. App. 1993).
Alan W. Mortensen
Alan W. Mortensen joined Dewsnup, King & Olsen in 1993 and became a shareholder in 2001. His practice is devoted exclusively to representing injured victims in personal injury, wrongful death, medical malpractice, and insurance bad faith cases. He is licensed in Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado.
One of the leading medical malpractice and personal injury attorneys serving Salt Lake City and areas throughout Utah, Mr. Mortensen has tried and litigated diverse truck and motor vehicle accident, civil rights, workplace injury, product liability, medical negligence, construction defect, forfeiture, employment, and insurance bad faith cases in the state and federal courts of Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Several of these cases have resulted in multi million-dollar settlements or verdicts. He has also successfully appealed cases to the Utah Supreme Court, the Utah Court of Appeals, the Wyoming Supreme Court, and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mr. Mortensen is a member of the Utah Trial Lawyers Association, where he sits on the Board of Governors. He is also a member of the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association and the American Association for Justice. He is a member of the Utah State Bar and the Salt Lake County Bar Associations. He is a Barrister in the American Inns of Court, A. Sherman Christensen Court I. Mr. Mortensen received his Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Political Science from the University of Utah. He also holds an associate's degree in Philosophy and Spanish, which he speaks fluently. He attended the University of Wyoming College of Law, where he graduated with honors and was a member of, authored, and edited the Land & Water Law Review. He has also authored articles that have appeared in several legal journals. He is a frequent lecturer and has given several seminar presentations to his peers. He lives in Bountiful, Utah with his wife, Robyn, and their five children.
John C. Hansen
John C. Hansen joined Dewsnup, King & Olsen after many years of work in the insurance industry. After his graduation from the University of Utah College of Law in 1988, he began working for the respected Salt Lake City insurance defense firm of Morgan & Hansen. In 1997 he helped to establish the law firm of Smith & Glauser, which handled cases for the largest insurance carrier in North America. When the Farmers Insurance Group of Companies opened a Salt Lake City in-house legal defense office, Mr. Hansen left private practice to work there as a senior trial attorney.
Mr. Hansen has handled thousands of personal injury cases as a defense attorney, through which he gained valuable experience and understanding of the workings of the insurance industry. He has successfully tried numerous cases before courts and juries throughout the state of Utah, in both Federal and State courts. Based on his experiences working for and with insurance companies, he determined that he wanted to work for and assist victims of personal injury. Since joining Dewsnup, King & Olsen, he has worked on behalf of deserving victims on cases involving bad-faith handling of claims by insurance companies and cases involving catastrophic injuries.
Because of his expertise and experience as both a plaintiff and defense lawyer, Mr. Hansen is often asked by personal injury attorneys for both plaintiffs and defendants to arbitrate or mediate cases. A former president of the Utah Defense Lawyers Association, Mr. Hansen is currently a member of the Utah State Bar and the Utah Trial Lawyers Association. He is admitted to practice before all of the Federal and State Courts in the State of Utah, as well as the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Mr. Hansen is married and the father of four sons. When not practicing law, Mr. Hansen can generally be found attending the sporting events of one of his sons. He and his family enjoy sports of all kinds, particularly baseball, basketball and snow skiing.
Tawni J. Anderson Sherman
Tawni Sherman joined Dewsnup, King & Olsen in 2005, after spending nearly five years in the appellate practice and litigation sections of Snell & Wilmer’s Salt Lake City office. Before joining Snell & Wilmer, Tawni clerked for Judge Norman H. Jackson of the Utah Court of Appeals from 1998 to 2000. Tawni graduated from Reed College in 1991, where she majored in French literature, and she is a 1998 graduate of the University of Utah College of Law.
Tawni’s practice is divided between appellate advocacy and trial work. She has significant experience handling appeals before Utah’s appellate courts and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Her appellate practice includes post-trial practice, pre-trial appellate consulting, and editing briefs for other practitioners. Tawni’s litigation experience has covered a broad range of commercial matters, but is now focused on medical malpractice and pharmaceutical products liability work. She has a special interest in cases involving neurosurgical, neurological, and neuroradiology issues.
She is active in the Utah State Bar Association, where she was the Chair of the Appellate Practice Section from 2006 to 2007 and is also a member of the Litigation Section and Minority Bar Association. In 2007 she was appointed to the Utah Supreme Court Advisory Commitee on the Rules of Appellate Procedure.
She is a member of the Utah Trial Lawyers Association, where she serves on the Board of Governors, and of the Salt Lake County Bar Association, the Utah chapter of the Federal Bar Association, and the David K. Watkiss-Sutherland II Inn of Court. Tawni is also actively involved with the American Bar Association, where she is a member of the Appellate Judges Conference, the Litigation Section, and the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice (“TIPS”) Section.
Dewsnup, King & Olsen
All three of the named shareholders of Dewsnup, King & Olsen have been selected by their peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America in handling personal injury matters. For many years, our firm has been awarded an "AV" rating, the highest possible, by the prestigious national law firm directory, Martindale-Hubbell. Many individual personal injury and medical malpractice attorneys within our Salt Lake City, Utah firm also hold Martindale's "AV" rating, based on peer review of their practice. Members of our firm have been admitted to select trial advocacy groups, including the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, and the American Inns of Court.
In addition, Dewsnup, King & Olsen continually strives to maintain a high level of civic involvement and to act in the public arena to protect its clients and the community from efforts to reduce access to the courts or to limit the right to jury trials. Our firm has been an active leader in the Utah Trial Lawyers Association (UTLA) for many years. Several of our firm members currently serve on that organization's Board of Governors; four of our members have been President of that organization. Members of the firm actively work with the Utah legislature to propose, draft and support new laws and modifications to existing laws to improve access to the courts and to protect and secure our constitutional rights. We support and promote the ideals and goals of the American Association for Justice (AAJ) and of the UTLA.
Contact Our Personal Injury and Medical Malpractice Attorneys
To learn more about the medical malpractice and personal injury attorneys at our Salt Lake City, Utah law firm or to schedule an appointment, please contact Dewsnup, King & Olsen today. Our team of lawyers and support staff are looking forward to working with you.
Contact the personal injury and medical malpractice attorneys at our Salt Lake City, Utah firm for a case review.
36 South State Street
Suite 2400
Salt Lake City, UT 84111-0024
800.404.8520 toll free