Power of Procedure
Alumna Mallika Kaur ’10, of counsel at ADZ Law, contacted Professor Andrew Bradt regarding a civil case filed in Napa County on behalf of a domestic violence victim against her then-partner (both from Georgia) for acts he committed during a trip to California. Although criminal charges were filed against him in California, the court ruled it lacked personal jurisdiction in the plaintiff’s case for civil damages.
“Who better to elucidate on the personal jurisdiction issues than Andew, an expert who has written two casebooks on civil procedure?” Kaur says. “I don’t know how he found time for this during pandemic teaching, but I know a lot of people who are deeply grateful that he did.”
Believing the ruling was erroneous and that California law needed elaboration, Bradt advised on the case and wrote an amicus brief for the plaintiff’s appeal with his student research assistants Jessica Cuddihy ’21 and Natasha Geiling ’21.
They argued that if someone intentionally commits a harm-causing tort in California, even during a short visit, that person should have to answer for it in the state’s courts. The California Court of Appeals agreed, reversing the decision and remanding the case for further proceedings.
“This importantly clarifies the law for many survivors of domestic violence,” Kaur says. “Given the interstate and interconnected nature of our lives, coupled with the continuing pervasiveness of intimate partner violence … we knew the lack of clear case law would be a blow to many future victims seeking civil remedies.”
Close friends who met in a bagel line at Berkeley Law orientation, Geiling and Cuddihy tracked how personal jurisdiction is handled in states versus federal court. The brief noted the U.S. Supreme Court’s stated reasons for constitutional limits on personal jurisdiction, why those limits didn’t apply here, and why the plaintiff’s case established required contacts between the defendant and California.
“Personal jurisdiction is both a fundamental and complex topic of civil procedure, something we study as 1Ls but go back to even in more advanced classes,” Geiling says. “So the research was both familiar and challenging.”
For many students, Civil Procedure — a required 1L course — seems detached from substantive justice. Bradt’s teaching emphasizes that “every case is a procedure case,” and how “mastery of procedure can often be the difference between winning and losing, regardless of the case’s merits.”
“This collaboration really represents the best of Berkeley,” Bradt says. “This is just one case, but it makes a real difference for a real person and also led to a published opinion that clearly moves our state law in the right direction. It’s just a great example of what our community, and the rule of law, can accomplish.”
— Andrew Cohen