Chung brings trial court record to 6th District election

Judge Frederick S. Chung has ruled on lawsuits arising from a mass shooting, firefighters' objections to COVID-19 vaccinations and the wording of a transit tax ballot measure. His first published appellate opinion turned on whether an electric bicycle qualifies as a motor vehicle.

Chung, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge since 2018, is seeking a 12-year term on the 6th District Court of Appeal in the Nov. 3 election. Confirmed Aug. 19, he would take his seat Jan. 4 if voters approve. He has written 20 opinions as a justice pro tem, one of them published.

In Beale v. Department of Motor Vehicles (2026), Chung held that the DMV could not suspend the driver's license of a man who rode an electric bicycle while drunk and refused a chemical test. A warrant-backed blood test showed 0.113 percent alcohol.

Vehicle Code Section 24016 says an electric bicycle "is not a motor vehicle." The suspension statute applies only to motor vehicle drivers. The DMV argued that bicyclists must follow the same rules as drivers, but Chung found those rules did not extend to license suspensions.

"It is not up to the court to disregard the current statutory scheme in favor of public policy arguments from the DMV," he wrote.

His trial court work has drawn more attention. Five San Jose firefighters who refused COVID-19 vaccines on religious grounds sued after being placed on five weeks of unpaid leave in 2022. Chung sustained the city's demurrer without leave to amend, finding the firefighters "effectively, voluntarily disabled" and unpaid leave the only available accommodation.

The 6th District reversed in Bingham v. City of San Jose (2024), finding that Chung had relied on disability regulations inapplicable to religious claims and that the firefighters had plausibly alleged involuntary unpaid leave was not reasonable.

In 2023, Chung granted summary judgment to Gilroy, the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association and a security company in lawsuits arising from the 2019 festival shooting, which killed three people and wounded 17. Without evidence of earlier gun violence at the festival, a mass shooting "was not a reasonably foreseeable risk," he wrote.

The victims appealed, and the 6th District heard oral argument Sept. 8. The panel asked the parties how the case should be analyzed if the lack of prior gun violence is not, by itself, enough to show a mass shooting was unforeseeable, which was the core of Chung's reasoning.

Chung also dismissed rifle importer Century Arms Inc. for lack of personal jurisdiction. The company sold a "California compliant" version of the weapon in California, but the gunman used a noncompliant model sold in Texas and illegally brought in. "That is a 'material difference,' and it ends the inquiry," Chung wrote.

In eight years on the bench, Chung has handled criminal, juvenile, appellate and civil courts and is assistant supervising judge of the civil division.

Before taking the bench, Chung was an intellectual property litigator, representing clients such as Fitbit, T-Mobile and AT&T. He worked at Morrison & Foerster LLP and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, spending his final year largely advising Facebook on data privacy. He handled 70 to 80 pro bono cases.

"I have always been interested in judicial ethics issues," Chung wrote. He was appointed in January to the California Supreme Court's Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinions.

Early on, Chung presided over juvenile dependency cases, trying not to add to parents' stress "by lecturing them or being pedantic," he told the Daily Journal in 2019.

When terminating parental rights, he said, "I will usually write out my reasons and try to provide those reasons orally to the parties so that they understand what the basis for the decision is."

John Nieman, a supervising attorney in Santa Clara County's office of dependency counsel, commented at the time, "He makes a good record of what his thought process is, and that's important."