Daum brings a historian's eye and a litigator's range to the 2nd District

A few months after joining the Los Angeles County Superior Court, Nicholas F. Daum faced a bare-bones motion from a misdemeanor defendant arguing that California's ban on brass knuckles violated the Second Amendment.

Daum dug in anyway, writing a nine-page ruling that traced the history of the right to bear arms. "Nothing in the available record indicates a common tradition of the use of metal knuckles for legitimate self-defense, inside or outside of California," he concluded in People v. Solis (2022), overruling the demurrer.

"Historical thought is critical for any judge," he told the Daily Journal in 2023.

Now a justice of the 2nd District Court of Appeal, Division 4, Daum is seeking retention Nov. 3 for the remaining eight years of his predecessor's term. Gov. Gavin Newsom nominated him in June, and he was confirmed in August.

The division was familiar. Daum sat on it by assignment in 2023 and again in 2025. Counting those stints, he has written seven published opinions.

In Molina v. Triumph Residential Services Inc. (2026), issued last week, he held that an employer cannot enforce an arbitration agreement it illegally required as a condition of employment under Labor Code Section 432.6 when the Federal Arbitration Act does not apply. He found no published California opinion answering the question. Triumph argued the worker was "free to accept the Arbitration Agreement, attempt to negotiate out of it or look for other employment." Accepting or looking elsewhere, Daum wrote, was "simply another way of stating" that signing was a condition of her employment.

His earlier published employment opinions also went for workers. In Nirschl v. Schiller (2023), he held that statements an employer makes while seeking a release from a fired employee are not automatically protected by the anti-SLAPP law. A couple who fired their nanny had made accusations about her to an intermediary while pressing her to sign a severance release, and she sued for defamation.

The couple had also moved to strike her unrelated wage-and-hour claims. "Though we do not reach the conclusion lightly, no reasonable attorney could have believed" that was proper, Daum wrote, upholding her fee award and granting her fees on appeal. By appealing every claim, the couple had won an automatic stay that froze her entire case, gaining "an unwarranted tactical advantage," he wrote.

In Shi v. City of Palos Verdes Estates (2026), the other opinion issued last week, he revived a homeowner's damages claim alleging the city took more than three years to approve his accessory dwelling unit, despite a state law requiring expeditious ministerial approval. The city argued the ADU laws aimed to ease the housing crisis, not protect homeowners. "Timely, ministerial approval for applicants," Daum wrote, "is not 'incidental' to section 66317. It is the point of section 66317."

Newsom appointed Daum to the Superior Court in 2022. His first assignment was a misdemeanor courtroom in San Fernando, his first experience with criminal law.

"There's nothing more that will teach you practicality in law better than being a misdemeanor judge," he said in 2023.

Deputy Public Defender Sean G. O'Halloran said, "When he says 'no further continuances' or 'last chance' he means it."

Daum later moved to an independent calendar courtroom at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse.

Before the bench, Daum spent nearly two decades as a civil litigator. After graduating from Yale Law School, he clerked for 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Raymond C. Fisher, whom he called "a mentor and idol." He spent 13 years at Kendall Brill & Kelly LLP, where he became a partner and helped lead the entertainment and media practice and did pro bono voting rights work.

Founding partner Richard B. Kendall called Daum "a brilliant writer with a prodigious, expansive intellect."

Off the bench, Daum chairs the board of the Western Justice Center, "an organization that promotes effective and peaceful conflict resolution techniques in schools throughout LA County," he wrote.