Justice Brian M. Hoffstadt

The Secretary of State's official guide lists Brian M. Hoffstadt, Presiding Justice, Division Five, among the Second District justices on the retention ballot. Names and divisions only, each linked to the court's biography.

• Hoffstadt is the only Division Five justice listed.
• No qualifications, ratings, or arguments appear on this page.

The court's published-opinion listings for October 2024 to October 2026 show 11 opinions Hoffstadt authored and 1 separate opinion (a concurrence in People v. Cabrera). The listing gives case names only; by name, the authored opinions include one criminal appeal (People v. Santistevan), two juvenile cases (In re Bella L., In re X.D.), one writ proceeding, one probate matter, and civil suits against businesses, a law firm, and two public entities.

• Authored: 11; separate opinions: 1 (concurring, People v. Cabrera, 2025-05-30); no dissents.
• Most recent authored: People v. Santistevan (2026-08-27); earliest: Estate of St. John v. Schaeffler (2025-03-21).
• Covers published opinions only; most appellate decisions are unpublished and do not appear.

Hoffstadt's opinion affirms a battery conviction but strikes a great bodily injury enhancement attached to the battery-causing-serious-bodily-injury count, holding Penal Code section 12022.7(g) bars that pairing. It follows People v. Hawkins (1993), declines to follow In re Jose H. (2000), and rejects the Attorney General's argument that the Supreme Court's 2023 In re Cabrera displaced Hawkins.

• Reads In re Cabrera as discussing but not overruling Hawkins.
• Says Jose H. misread Hawkins's basis (section 654 rather than section 12022.7(g)).
• Unpublished part: no abuse of discretion in denying a same-day sentencing continuance sought to obtain a mental-health report that "might" be favorable.

Hoffstadt's published opinion holds, as a matter of law, that Target was not charged with knowing that an employee had undisclosed bipolar disorder merely because he behaved aggressively and irrationally on two shifts and a supervisor worried about his mental state. Without knowledge, FEHA discrimination, accommodation, and interactive-process claims fail. Summary judgment affirmed.

• Knowledge is imputed only when disability is "the only reasonable interpretation" of known facts (discrimination) or obviously follows from symptoms (accommodation).
• Offers drug use, medication effects, or sleep deprivation as other reasonable interpretations.
• Treats a supervisor's untrained opinion that the employee "needed help" as relevant but not controlling, since the test is objective.
• Rejects Ninth Circuit cases equating disability-caused conduct with the disability itself.
• Declines to relax the knowledge requirement even though the employee was unaware of his manic episodes, noting employees may disclose voluntarily.

Hoffstadt's opinion affirms a $750,000 verdict for a pedestrian hit by a falling Bradford pear limb in Diamond Bar. It holds the trial court could admit nine earlier branch failures from same-species trees in the same neighborhood to prove the city had notice, applying the relaxed similarity standard for notice evidence, and (unpublished part) that a neighbor's reports of fallen limbs were admissible.

• Distinguishes the stricter similarity standard for proving a dangerous condition from the relaxed one for proving notice.
• Rejects the city's species-variation argument as unsupported by evidence; the city called no expert.
• Says the city's position would require courts to "jettison nearly a century of precedent."
• Holds the city cannot complain of testimony it elicited on cross-examination.

Hoffstadt's short published opinion affirms termination of parental rights, holding that a juvenile court's finding of an adequate initial ICWA inquiry was supported where the agency asked both parents and several relatives on both sides about Native American heritage but skipped the paternal grandfather.

• Applies the Supreme Court's Dezi C. (2024): adequacy is reviewed deferentially and the agency need not ask everyone.
• Lists the ten family members asked; all denied Native American heritage.
• Finds the omission did not make the agency's "otherwise diligent and well-documented efforts unreliable."

Hoffstadt's published opinion holds that a licensed freight broker owed no duty of care to a carrier's driver paralyzed in a crash, because the broker neither performed the transport nor controlled how the carrier did it. Summary judgment for XPO affirmed. Justice Kim concurred except on the retained-control analysis, which she viewed as not raised on appeal.

• Applies California's strong presumption (Privette/Sandoval) that a hirer owes no duty to an independent contractor's employees.
• A nondelegable duty attaches to licensed carriers; XPO was a licensed broker and, even on a de facto theory, did not provide transportation.
• Tracking shipments and setting delivery times are a broker's job, not control over safety.
• Holds the Eleventh Circuit's Essex test for cargo damage irrelevant to personal-injury duty: "Essex is an apple to the pertinent law's orange."
• Concurring, Kim (D.), J., would not have reached the retained-control exception, citing judicial restraint.

Hoffstadt's short concurrence joins a unanimous reversal allowing a man sentenced to 50 years to life for a murder at age 15 to seek resentencing as if he had a juvenile LWOP sentence. He writes that on a clean slate he would defer to the Legislature's line between LWOP and other sentences, but finds the Supreme Court's Contreras holding that 50-to-life is functionally LWOP "inescapable and indistinguishable." The majority, by Justice Kim, rested on the Attorney General's concession.

• Concurrence expresses deference to the Legislature on rational-basis line-drawing.
• Follows binding Supreme Court precedent despite that preference; notes a contrary appellate reading in People v. Munoz (2025).
• Published on request of the Juvenile Innocence & Fair Sentencing Clinic.

USC Gould faculty profile of Hoffstadt as a lecturer in law; it repeats his career history and notes his books and regular Daily Journal contributions.

• Lists him as a Lecturer in Law and a teacher of judges, lawyers, and students.
• Notes he co-authored Evidence Law: Practice, Problems and Policy and wrote California Criminal Discovery.

Judicial Council news release: the Commission on Judicial Appointments unanimously confirmed Hoffstadt as Presiding Justice of Division Five on November 25, 2024, succeeding retired Presiding Justice Laurence D. Rubin. Gives his career dates.

• Unanimous vote of Chief Justice Guerrero, Attorney General Bonta, and Presiding Justice Arthur Gilbert.
• Career dates: Superior Court 2010-2014; Jones Day partner 2007-2010; Assistant U.S. Attorney 2000-2007; DOJ Office of Policy Development 1998-2000; FCC 1997-1998; O'Connor clerkship 1996-1997.

The court's official profile: on the Court of Appeal since August 2014, ten years in Division Two and Presiding Justice of Division Five since 2024. A former federal prosecutor, Jones Day appellate partner, and Superior Court judge (2010-2014) who clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and a prolific author and teacher on evidence and criminal discovery.

• Appointed by governors of both parties: Schwarzenegger (Superior Court, 2010), Brown (Division Two), Newsom (Presiding Justice, Division Five).
• Six years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, including criminal appeals before the Ninth Circuit.
• Author of California Criminal Discovery and co-author of Evidence Law: Practice, Problems, and Policy; nearly 100 Daily Journal columns; law review articles.
• Elected to the American Law Institute in 2018; adviser on the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Defamation and Privacy.
• Teaches Evidence at USC Gould; Judicial College faculty since 2012.