Nov 3, 1929 - Oct 20, 2019

Herb Hafif, a renowned personal injury lawyer and philanthropist, died Sunday, Oct. 27 of complications from kidney failure at age 89.

Hafif was born in Philadelphia on Nov. 3, 1929. He grew up in New Jersey. After his father’s death, when he was 6, his mother struggled to make ends meet and decided to put him in foster care.

Greg Hafif said his father talked about that moment when his mother talked about sending him away to an orphanage. This was during the Great Depression when most Americans were struggling to survive.

“My dad was 6 and sitting under a table, overhearing a conversation between his mother and aunt,” Greg Hafif said. “They were talking about how they needed to get him out because they couldn’t feed him. It made him feel unwanted.”

Herb Hafif never forgot that moment. It would later motivate him to give to charities that helped neglected and at-risk children.
After spending several years in foster care, Hafif returned to live with his mother. But he ran away from home at age 14, Greg Hafif said.

Many helped him along the way, his son said. Hafif graduated from Claremont High School and received scholarships to attend Chaffey College and Pomona College, and later USC Law School. His spirit of entrepreneurship shone through as early as his college days in Claremont when he started a painting company, his son said.

Challenges early in life imbued Herb Hafif with compassion for children and teens who struggle to thrive despite adversity, Greg Hafif said. And that formed the basis for his philanthropy, which has benefited numerous charities in Southern California.
“He understood what it was like to have nothing,” Greg Hafif said.

In the early 1980s, his father started the Hafif Family Foundation, which has contributed more than $20 million to charitable causes including thousands of scholarships. The foundation has donated to health clinics for the underserved, charities that serve the homeless and hungry, drug rehabilitation programs, city park maintenance programs and gang intervention efforts.
The foundation has been recognized locally and nationally, and was twice selected as the No. 1 private foundation in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

For several years now, Hafif and his wife, Kay, have opened up their 150-acre estate in La Verne’s Live Oak Canyon to charities to host Concerts Under the Stars to raise money for their causes.

Herb Hafif established his law practice in Claremont in 1958 and earned a reputation for taking on cases against cities and large corporations, sticking up for the little guy, said Wylie Aitken, an Orange County-based personal injury trial lawyer who knew Hafif for about half a century.

Aitken said Hafif once took a case on behalf of a woman who had been rendered paraplegic after one of the historic oak trees on Ontario Boulevard in Ontario fell on her car and critically injured her. He said most attorneys would close such a trial by talking to jurors about liability, but not Hafif.

“He compared the life of the tree with the life of his client,” Aitken recalled.

Hafif talked about how the tree was already diseased when the woman was born, and continued to deteriorate as she went to school, graduated from college, got married and had children. Without talking about liability, he made the jury understand how the city had neglected to maintain the tree, Aitken said
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In addition to representing clients in the courtroom, Hafif knew the importance of talking to legislators, advocating to change the law to protect those injured by bad drivers, bad roadways and unsafe products, Aitken said. Hafif also was a pioneer when it came to whistleblower lawsuits and class-action lawsuits, he said.

Hafif was not just brilliant, he was “crazy brilliant,” Aitken said.

“He was a larger-than-life guy. He was a mesmerizing speaker, a teacher who could communicate with humor at any level. He was a champion boxer and paratrooper in the military.”

He even ran for California governor in 1974 and placed seventh to Jerry Brown for the Democratic nomination.
And apart from all that, he was an ambitious restaurateur and a bit of a showman.

In 1960, he opened the Royal Tahitian on Riverside Drive between Vineyard and Archibald avenues in Ontario with his friend and restaurateur Walter Boldig. The two also owned Walter’s Coffee Shops in both Ontario and Claremont and a Mexican restaurant, Casa de Mayo, in Rancho Cucamonga.

But the Royal Tahitian, with its 500-seat dining room, Chinese ovens, a head chef who was a native of Hilo, Hawaii, and Polynesian dancers who swayed to music played by the house band, was Hafif’s pride and joy. Hafif was often the emcee for the garden concerts, which began at the Royal Tahitian back in 1964 with Duke Ellington and his orchestra.

Many great acts followed. The summer of 1967 alone brought Ella Fitzgerald, the Four Tops, James Brown, Bobby Darin and Ray Charles. Louis Armstrong was there from Aug. 22 to Sept. 2, 1965. Ray Charles became a good friend of Hafif’s and even hired him as his lawyer, Aitken said.

Above all, Hafif emanated positive energy and passion, Aitken said.

“If I was ever feeling down or negative about the way things were, all I needed was to spend an evening with Herb. He would make me realize anything is possible, as long as you have passion and are willing to fight for it.”

Hafif is survived by his wife of 57 years, Kay; two sons, Greg and Ruston; and four grandchildren.

A celebration of life has been set for Sunday, Nov. 3, at the Hafif Estate, 4950 Live Oak Canyon Road in La Verne.

Columnist David Allen contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the location of the former Casa de Mayo restaurant.

Herb is standing on the left in the striped t-shirt.

The three old black and white photos are from El Espiritu - 1947.