How do judges of the California Court of Appeal reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.

California Court of Appeal / Joined 1977 / Served to 1993

Christopher C. Cottle

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

Christopher C. Cottle was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal (89 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), who joined the court in 1977. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1940 · age 86
Tenure: 1977–1993 · 15 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1977	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1988	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Cottle authored 106 published opinions for the court (1988–2001). Most cited: SHEILA S. v. Superior Court (122 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 7 of these were attributed to Cottle by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2000	SHEILA S. v. Superior Court	101 Cal. Rptr. 2d 187	122
2001	Francisco G. v. Superior Court	110 Cal. Rptr. 2d 679	102
1995	Okoli v. Lockheed Technical Operations Co.	36 Cal. App. 4th 1607	97
1990	Blankenheim v. E. F. Hutton & Co.	217 Cal. App. 3d 1463	80
1990	Philippine Export & Foreign Loan Guarantee Corp. v. Chuidian	218 Cal. App. 3d 1058	77
1999	Benavidez v. San Jose Police Department	84 Cal. Rptr. 2d 157	67
1996	Addy v. Bliss & Glennon	44 Cal. App. 4th 205	64
1995	Montana v. San Jose Mercury News, Inc.	34 Cal. App. 4th 790	54
1990	Slivinsky v. Watkins-Johnson Co.	221 Cal. App. 3d 799	54
1998	Walsh v. West Valley Mission Cmty. Coll. Dist.	78 Cal. Rptr. 2d 725	52
1998	Becerra v. County of Santa Cruz	81 Cal. Rptr. 2d 165	51
1999	City of San Jose v. Superior Court	88 Cal. Rptr. 2d 552	47
1999	People v. Fernandez	82 Cal. Rptr. 2d 469	40
1996	People v. Hurtado	47 Cal. App. 4th 805	40
1990	Caldwell v. Samuels Jewelers	222 Cal. App. 3d 970	40

Showing the 15 most-cited of 106 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the California Court of Appeal reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court was Christopher C. Cottle on?: Christopher C. Cottle was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

15 years on the California Court of Appeal. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).