Kurt grew up in Westlake Hills, California, but spent his high school years in Herndon, Virginia, where he was Quarterback and Team Captain of his high school football team. He also ran track and was the Captain of the track team as well.
After high school, Kurt attended the United States Naval Academy where he majored in Oceanography and was a starting defensive back on the football team.
After graduating from the Naval Academy in 1984, Kurt served in the United States Marine Corps as an artillery officer for five years and achieved the rank of Captain. While in the Marine Corps, Kurt was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal for “superior performance of duty” and served in a special weapons unit that required a Top-Secret clearance.
After his service in the Marine Corps, Kurt attended law school at the University of California at Davis where he served as Research Editor on the Law Review. After graduation, Kurt joined the prestigious defense law firm of Bronson, Bronson, and McKinnon in San Francisco, California, where he litigated product liability cases for defendant corporations such as Cessna Aircraft, Bic Lighter, and Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing. Kurt soon realized that he would much rather represent people instead of corporations. In 1998, Kurt made the switch and has been representing people that have been injured by the negligence of others ever since.
Although Kurt has handled hundreds of personal injury cases throughout his career, the case that gained Kurt the most notoriety involved medical malpractice. In 2002, a surgeon at a local hospital botched a heart and lung transplant involving a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl named Jesica Santillan. Unfortunately, Jesica died as a result of the surgery and Kurt was called in to represent her family. Kurt was able to reach a settlement with the hospital before a lawsuit had to be filed. As a result of his work on the case, Kurt was interviewed by Good Morning America and the Today Show and was asked to participate in a press conference on Capitol Hill regarding pending medical malpractice legislation.
Kurt is known for representing the parents of a family of four who were killed when a tractor trailer truck smashed into the back of the family’s pick-up truck on I-95 in North Carolina. A pavement marking company was working on the highway that day and caused traffic to back up for over six miles which was against DOT regulations. The pavement marking company also failed to adequately warn oncoming traffic of the back-up. Kurt sued the trucking company and the pavement marking company and was able to settle the case on the eve of trial for 9.5 million dollars.
Kurt recently obtain his Commercial Driver’s License or “CDL” in order to be better serve victims of truck driver negligence. Kurt completed an extensive training process at Carolina Trucking Academy in Raleigh and can now actually drive tractor-trailer trucks on all roads and under all conditions. With this CDL license, Kurt now has a thorough understanding of what it takes to SAFELY drive a tractor-trailer truck and is one of the only North Carolina Trucking Accident Attorneys to have a law license and a CDL.
Kurt is married and is the father of three children – all adults. He recently became a grandfather as well. When he is not working on his client’s cases or playing with his grandchildren, Kurt enjoys training for triathlons and cheering for the Wolfpack, Tarheel and Blue Devil football teams. When the teams play each other, Kurt doesn’t know what to do!
