How do judges of the Washington Supreme Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Washington Supreme Court / Joined 1946 / Served to 1947

Donald G. Abel

Justice, Washington Supreme Court

Donald G. Abel was a Justice of the Washington Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1946. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1894 · age 132
Tenure: 1946–1947 · 1 yr

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1946	Washington Supreme Court	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Abel authored 21 published opinions for the court (1947), plus 2 dissents. Most cited: Swenson v. Seattle Central Labor Council (27 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.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1947	Swenson v. Seattle Central Labor Council· Dissent	177 P.2d 873	27
1947	Cascade Timber Co. v. Northern Pacific Railway Co.	184 P.2d 90	24
1947	State Ex Rel. Billington v. Sinclair	183 P.2d 813	23
1947	State v. Lindsey	177 P.2d 387	23
1947	Kausky v. Kosten	179 P.2d 950	22
1947	Strom v. Arcorace	178 P.2d 959	17
1947	Deruwe v. Morrison· Dissent	184 P.2d 273	16
1947	Kellogg v. Gleeson	178 P.2d 969	16
1947	Hynes v. Hynes	184 P.2d 68	14
1947	Rushlight v. MacLain	182 P.2d 62	13
1947	All-Rite Contracting Co. v. Omey	181 P.2d 636	12
1947	Anderson v. Kurrell	182 P.2d 1	10
1947	Cotten v. Wilson	178 P.2d 287	10
1947	Langer v. Auto Interurban Co.	183 P.2d 188	5
1947	Anderson v. Anderson	177 P.2d 83	5

Showing the 15 most-cited of 23 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 Washington Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Donald G. Abel on?: Donald G. Abel was a Justice of the Washington Supreme Court.

Sources

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1 year on the Washington Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).