Firm Profile

The Law Firm of Stephen H. Cook, P.C. is dedicated to protecting the rights of individuals who have been injured or wronged. The firm also handles the litigation needs of commercial clients. Founded in 1978, we have been providing assistance to injured persons and commercial clients for over 25 years. We are a small firm that emphasizes giving individualized attention to your case.

We represent clients in personal injury and insurance litigation. We also practice criminal defense and commercial litigation. Mr. Cook has over 25 years of experience in advocating his client’s rights against insurance companies. He has successfully handled over a thousand cases. He is recognized among trial lawyers in the Colorado region as an attorney with no fear of the courtroom.

Over the years, Mr. Cook has procured substantial settlements or judgments for his clients. In 1993, he garnered what was at the time the largest toxic tort jury verdict in Colorado. He was lead counsel representing four families near the rural town of Olathe who were forced to move from their homes after a wood chip manufacturing facility failed to comply with air quality control laws. Mr. Cook obtained a jury verdict for over $3,000,000, with interest and punitive damages, against the plant’s owner, Louisiana Pacific Corporation. The verdict was upheld on appeal, Orjias v. Louisiana Pacific, 31 F.3d 995 (10th Cir. 1994).

In another case of note, Mr. Cook was lead counsel representing 26 farmers who suffered serious financial losses after the pinto beans they had placed with a storage elevator company which were later sold “out of trust” without their permission. The elevator company sold the beans to the defendant trading company without keeping enough reserve stock to cover a subsequent loss. The farmers suffered huge losses when the market dictated it was time to sell the beans and there were no beans to sell. The elevator company had gone bankrupt, and the trading company broker and the ultimate purchaser of the beans, an international bean producer and distributor, were named as defendants. The jury awarded compensatory and punitive damages, which with interest and attorney fees exceeded 1.5 million dollars, to the plaintiff farmers and against all the defendants. The verdict was upheld on appeal. Gorsich v. Double B Trading, 893 P.2d 1357 (Colo.App. 1994).

Mr. Cook has also successfully litigated important legal issues at the appellate level. In Community Hospital Association v. District Court, 570 P.2d 243 (Colo. 1977), he was counsel in an action for medical malpractice against an incompetent physician and the hospital which supervised him. In a matter of first impression before the Colorado Supreme Court, the case recognized the right of the malpractice victim to have access to records of the other patients of an incompetent physician to establish his history of substandard care. Mr. Cook also successfully argued a case of first impression before the Colorado Court of Appeals in Bodah v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 724 P.2d 102 (Colo.App. 1986). There, the court held that a victim’s award for punitive damages (as opposed to compensatory damages) is not reduced by a finding of comparative negligence on the part of the victim.