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 1976 / Served to 2001

Don Ross Work

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

Don Ross Work was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal (89 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), who joined the court in 1976. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1928 · age 98
Tenure: 1976–2001 · 25 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1976	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1980	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Work authored 311 published opinions for the court (1979–2001), plus 8 dissents and 14 concurrences. Most cited: In Re Autumn H. (1,005 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. 60 of these were attributed to Work 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
1994	In Re Autumn H.	27 Cal. App. 4th 567	1,005
1983	DeYoung v. City of San Diego	147 Cal. App. 3d 11	123
2000	Bell v. Vista Unified School District	98 Cal. Rptr. 2d 263	117
1992	In Re Jeremy W.	3 Cal. App. 4th 1407	115
1987	People v. Kronemyer	189 Cal. App. 3d 314	98
1985	Beach Colony II v. California Coastal Com.	166 Cal. App. 3d 106	94
1982	Elam v. College Park Hospital	132 Cal. App. 3d 332	91
1993	Cellular Plus, Inc. v. Superior Court	14 Cal. App. 4th 1224	84
1992	In Re Esmeralda B.	11 Cal. App. 4th 1036	83
1989	San Diego County Department of Social Services v. Kelly D.· Concurrence†	215 Cal. App. 3d 889	82
1987	Lopez v. McDonald's Corp.	193 Cal. App. 3d 495	82
1999	Scripps Health v. Marin	85 Cal. Rptr. 2d 86	77
1997	Wimberly v. Derby Cycle Corp.	56 Cal. App. 4th 618	71
1996	City of El Cajon v. El Cajon Police Officers' Ass'n	49 Cal. App. 4th 64	68
1990	People v. Goulart	224 Cal. App. 3d 71	64

Showing the 15 most-cited of 333 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 Don Ross Work on?: Don Ross Work 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

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25 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).