The Morse Law Group

Jonathan S. Morse founded The Morse Law Group in January 2006. He is admitted to practice in California and Washington, and has been a practicing attorney since 1977. Mr. Morse handles business-related matters for both aviation and non-aviation clients, including the defense of aviation insurance claims, prosecution and defense of business litigation matters as well as negotiation and drafting of business contracts. He has supervised litigation in Canada and Australia and has successfully defended complex litigation in France.

Before becoming an attorney, Mr. Morse worked as an engineer and pilot. After receiving his B.S.E. degree with honors from Princeton University, he was a Flight Test Engineer with McDonnell Douglas Corporation, St. Louis, Missouri, involved in research and development flight testing for the F-4 Phantom airplane. 

In his law practice, Mr. Morse has represented insurers in numerous coverage matters and has defended pilots, mechanics, fixed base operators, aircraft manufacturers, an airline service cart maintenance facility, and aircraft component parts manufacturers in legal proceedings throughout the United States. He obtained summary judgment for a component manufacturer in the litigation arising out of the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 near Los Angeles. He has resolved numerous other cases by summary judgment, avoiding the need for a trial on factual issues. 



Throughout his career, Mr. Morse has also handled a large number of business litigation matters and has drafted and negotiated contracts involved in business transactions. He successfully recovered damages for holders of aircraft security interests whose property was sold in derogation of those security interests. He obtained partial summary judgment in favor of a client whose business was sold to a third party who failed to use best interests to operate the business. He has also drafted contracts for business entities in aviation and non aviation matters. 

After receiving his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree cum laude from the University of Michigan in 1977, Mr. Morse joined Adams, Duque and Hazeltine, Los Angeles. He handled aviation liability claims and insurance coverage disputes, including the defense of insurance bad faith claims. He also prosecuted actions to rescind life and disability insurance policies issued on the basis of false information on the insurance application.

In 1979, Mr. Morse joined Kern and Wooley, Los Angeles, where he handled aviation claims in California and several other states, defending pilots, mechanics, aircraft owners and operators as well as aircraft component part manufacturers. He resolved numerous cases through summary judgment and obtained voluntary dismissals in other cases where the plaintiffs chose not to oppose the summary judgment motion. He successfully defended aircraft component part manufacturers in a number of claims nationwide involving vacuum pumps, fuel selector valves and other components and obtained summary judgment for Velcro USA, Inc. in a hot air balloon case. At trial he obtained defense verdicts for other clients involving aviation and non-aviation accidents and successfully prosecuted aircraft subrogation claims. 



Mr. Morse was admitted to the practice of law in Washington in 1982. While practicing in Seattle, Washington, he handled personal injury plaintiff cases, subrogation actions for various insurance companies, collection work, and defense of pilots in FAA enforcement proceedings, including two hot air balloon cases. He also worked closely with insurance adjusters and insurance company representatives in the defense of liability claims and subrogation matters involving aviation and non-aviation matters. He successfully tried several cases to verdict before returning to Los Angeles in 1987. 

Rejoining Kern and Wooley, Mr. Morse continued to defend pilots, aircraft owners and operators, airport operators, aircraft component part manufacturers and aircraft manufacturers in law suits pending in California and several other states, including Alaska, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah and Wisconsin. These involved death and serious injury claims, as well as property damage claims. He successfully prosecuted an appeal in the Ninth Circuit, reversing a judgment in favor of a plaintiff who had failed to apportion damages. 



In 1997, Mr. Morse joined the Los Angeles office of Lane Powell Spears Lubersky, where he handled the defense of a component part manufacturer in two large airline property damage claims pending in France. These were highly technical cases involving multi-million dollar damage claims to two Airbus airplanes, one operated by Air Mauritius and the other owned and operated by Malaysia Airlines. These cases were consolidated for the French Judicial Expertise Proceedings, fact finding proceedings in the Tribunal de Commerce de Paris (Commercial Court of Paris). 

In 1999, before the French Judicial Expertise proceedings were completed, Mr. Morse joined the Santa Monica office of Bailey and Marzano (later Bailey and Partners), and continued to handle the French proceedings of the Airbus cases through this firm. Both French cases were successfully defended, resulting in Judgments in favor of the client. 



Mr. Morse holds an Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) Certificate and has more than 6,500 hours of flight time. He has worked an air taxi pilot, transporting passengers and freight in multi-engine airplanes, as well as a flight instructor, providing instrument instruction to pilots of single and multi-engine airplanes. His experience as a pilot also includes aerobatic flying, including teaching and performing with a low-level waiver in air shows, and the ownership of two airplanes.

Mr. Morse is a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the Northwest Aviation Insurance Association, the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the Santa Monica Bar Association, and the Rotary Club of Westlake Village. He is admitted to practice in California and Washington, and the United States District Court, Central District of California, Northern District of California, Eastern District of California, Southern District of California, Western District of Washington; United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. He has been specially admitted to practice in fifteen other states, and has coordinated the defense of lawsuits commenced in eighteen other states, as well as lawsuits commenced and prosecuted in Australia, Canada and France.