Recent Work
Regents of the University of California v. Superior Court (Rosen)
Katherine Rosen, a UCLA undergraduate, was attending her chemistry lab when she was stabbed and slashed by a fellow student, Damon Thompson. Thompson had long been known to UCLA authorities as paranoid, claiming he heard voices from classmates insulting his intelligence. He had been expelled from the dormitory for violence and was ordered to undergo treatment. He even threatened the lab teaching assistant but the authorities failed to implement UCLA's threat-assessment protocols. A divided court of appeal ruled that UCLA had no duty for safety in its classrooms as the students were all adults. In January 2016, the California Supreme Court voted 7-0 to hear the case. I presented oral argument on January 3, 2018 and on March 22, a unanimous court ruled in Katherine's favor. In so doing, the court extended to all 3.6 million California college students the right to be safe from foreseeable violence in curricular activities.
On remand to the Court of Appeal, I persuaded the court that the general negligence standard of care applied what would an prudent person have done in like circumstances.
