Torts scholar writes about role of statutory torts within tort theory and broader legal landscape
When Matteo Godi boarded a plane from Italy to Boise, Idaho, as a high school exchange student, he couldn’t have known the full extent of how that one-year experience would shape the rest of his life. But it was in Boise that he first became fluent in English and where he began to envision a future in the United States. That formative year set him on a path to become the first in his family to graduate from college and, ultimately, a career in law.
“It was the year everything changed,” Godi said. “I’m still in touch with my host family. They came to my graduation, even to our wedding.”
Now, Godi joins the USC Gould School of Law as an assistant professor, where his scholarship focuses on tort law, specifically, the role of statutory torts within tort theory and the broader legal landscape.
“Most tort law scholarship still centers on common law claims like negligence, defamation, or products liability,” Godi explained. “But in practice, a lot of the tort principles lawyers deal with today come up in the context of state and federal statutes. Still, when interpreting statutory torts, courts resort to tort principles only selectively and opportunistically.”
His forthcoming article in the California Law Review explores Section 1983, a Reconstruction-era federal law that enables individuals to sue state actors for deprivations of constitutional rights. Often associated today with high-profile cases involving police misconduct or civil rights violations, the statute has also played a critical role in major constitutional decisions, including Brown v. Board of Education.
“There’s a lot of confusion around Section 1983, especially about what kind of intent or mental state is required to hold someone liable,” Godi said. “My argument is that the statute was originally meant to recognize a strict liability tort. In other words, if a harm occurs, the inquiry should focus on whether the state actor caused the injury, not whether that actor acted negligently or maliciously. Yet courts and scholars have taken the focus on the actor’s mental state for granted.”
That nuanced approach reflects Godi’s broader academic mission: bringing clarity to areas of law where practice and theory have diverged. His interest in this intersection stems from firsthand experience; before entering academia, he clerked for federal judges and practiced appellate litigation in private practice.
“I think that time litigating really shaped how I think about tort law today,” he said. “We live in an age of statutes, and I want to understand what that means for a field that’s historically been governed by the common law and theorized as a common-law field.”
At USC Gould, Godi will teach torts to first-year students as well as a seminar in the spring on statutory torts. Teaching, he says, is one of the most energizing parts of the job.
“Being in a classroom means constantly thinking about the law as it should be, not just how it is or how your client wants it to be,” he said. “Students, and especially 1Ls, bring that kind of energy. It’s invigorating.”
When he’s not writing or teaching, Godi enjoys time with his wife, whom he met in college, and their “impossibly adorable and bossy” shih tzu, Fiona. He also, stereotypically, loves cooking.
The couple recently relocated from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, trading the East Coast’s gray winters for SoCal sunshine. “I’ve moved a lot over the years, from Italy, to Idaho, to New Haven, D.C., and now L.A.,” he said. “It’s different moving with more than one suitcase. But we’re excited to be here.”
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