Deborah S. Chang

When the recent state Supreme Court decision came down ruling that universities have a duty to protect its students, Chang stopped in the middle of a deposition to read all 35 pages.

The high court ruled in Chang’s favor, saying that a special relationship does arise between the university and students with regard to campus safety.

Even her opposing counsel in the deposition was excited about the new law Chang helped spearhead.

“It’s one of those moments I’ll never forget. Everyone in that room recognized the gravity of that case,” said Chang.

Chang’s client was UCLA student Katharine Rosen, who survived slashes across her throat and multiple stab wounds by her schizophrenic classmate.

Chang sued, arguing the university failed to protect Rosen from the incident. The Regents of the University of California v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, 2018 DJDAR 2629.

Following the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, UCLA enacted protocols to better measure and respond to potential threats.

But through depositions, Chang and attorneys at Panish Shea & Boyle found the university didn’t correctly implement the procedure. What they found is one section of the school would know a piece of information, but the committee formed for this purpose wasn’t following through on that information.

“They weren’t really using it,” said Chang.

Further, the school didn’t tell her client that she had been identified, by name, by the attacker.

“They never told my client she was ID’d. She would have stayed home that day,” said Chang.

Court observers said the ruling is the biggest step forward yet in helping to prevent the rising number of university school shootings.

“To me what it signifies is how strong the Supreme Court of California felt about this issue. They weren’t even limiting it to the classroom, but they could have,” said Chang, referring to how far the duty of care extended.

Initially Chang and her colleagues thought they would try the case and fight the appeal after a verdict, but instead they did depositions and UCLA argued a summary judgment motion before the trial court based on its theory of having no duty to warn.

“Thank goodness because those depositions were very helpful. We opposed and put in a lot of expert declarations not knowing they would be such an important part of the record,” said Chang.

Chang said it is gratifying to get a multimillion-dollar verdict on behalf of a client, but a verdict like this is different.

“When you get a record verdict like that, it’s great, but a case like this feels better,” Chang said.

— Justin Kloczko