Bromberg brought 3 decades of appellate advocacy to 6th District court

A toddler, a key fob left in a purse and an SUV that can be shifted into gear without a push-button start supplied the facts of Justice Daniel H. Bromberg's most widely covered opinion since joining the 6th District in 2023.

The resulting lawsuit, Harcourt v. Tesla (2026), led to Bromberg's opinion affirming a nonsuit for Tesla Inc. against Mallory Harcourt, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant when her 21/2-year-old son climbed into her Model X, shifted it into drive and pinned her against her garage wall.

Harcourt pursued her design defect claim solely under the consumer expectations test, waiving the risk-benefit test. Bromberg, writing for a unanimous panel, called the choice "somewhat surprising" given the unusual facts. The case involved misuse, "and an unusual one at that."

Bromberg seeks a full 12-year term Nov. 3. He was nominated by Gov. Gavin Newsom and confirmed Jan. 13, 2023.

Retirement did not erase the consequences of a misconduct verdict against former Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith, Bromberg wrote for a unanimous panel in People v. Smith (2024). Smith retired while jurors were deliberating, but state law bars anyone "convicted of malfeasance in office" from jury service, even when the verdict comes from a removal proceeding.

The court would not "place a thumb on the scale in favor of public officials whom a jury has found beyond a reasonable doubt to have committed malfeasance in office," he wrote.

A dissent Bromberg wrote in an ambulance accident case was vindicated when the California Supreme Court unanimously reversed the 6th District majority in July 2025. In Gutierrez v. Tostado (2023), the divided panel had applied the one-year medical malpractice statute of limitations to a traffic accident involving an ambulance, rather than the two-year negligence deadline.

His dissent warned that applying the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act's shorter deadline to a "run-of-the-mill traffic accident" would extend the law "unpredictably and unfairly." He questioned the majority's assumption that doing so would reduce medical malpractice insurance costs.

The Supreme Court took up that question, citing Bromberg's dissent when it sought the insurance commissioner's views. Eventually, Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero held that MICRA's deadline does not apply when healthcare providers breach duties owed to the public generally, such as the duty to drive safely. The court disapproved two earlier appellate decisions applying MICRA to ambulance accidents.

Rejecting the 6th District majority's concern about different filing deadlines arising from the same accident, Guerrero wrote, "We agree with the dissent."

Before Bromberg joined the appellate court, the Harvard Law School graduate spent three decades as an appellate specialist and had never been a judge.

At Jones Day, where he worked 11 years, Bromberg wrote several dozen U.S. Supreme Court briefs and successfully argued Cortez Byrd Chips Inc. v. Bill Harbert Construction Co. (2000). The unanimous court held that challenges to arbitration awards need not be brought in the federal district where the award was issued.

In 2005, he helped former Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan establish an appellate practice at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. They represented USC in Sargon Enterprises Inc. v. University of Southern California (2012), a leading California Supreme Court decision requiring trial judges to exclude speculative or unreliable expert testimony.

Newsom appointed Bromberg deputy legal affairs secretary in 2019, overseeing litigation against the Trump administration. Among the cases was a failed federal challenge to California's agreement linking its greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program with Quebec's.

The pandemic soon dominated his work. "Due to the number of suits against the Governor concerning COVID-19 restrictions, approximately 75% of my time has been occupied by litigation," he wrote in his appellate application.

Bromberg left the administration in 2021 to lead Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP's national appellate practice. He also was founding director of UC Law San Francisco's California Appellate Advocacy Program and taught California constitutional law at Berkeley Law.