How do judges of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is partisan election.

Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania / Joined 1987 / Served to 2009

Doris A. Smith-Ribner

Judge, Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania

Doris A. Smith-Ribner was a Judge of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, who joined the court in 1987. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1987–2009 · 22 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1987	Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Smith-Ribner authored 9 published opinions for the court (2002–2007), plus 1 dissent and 1 concurrence. Most cited: Caso v. Workers' Compensation Appeal Board (15 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. 11 of these were attributed to Smith-Ribner 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
2002	Caso v. Workers' Compensation Appeal Board†	790 A.2d 1078	15
2002	Gann v. WORKERS COMPENSATION APPEAL BD.(MBS MGMT./WELLINGTON)†	792 A.2d 701	12
2002	Newman v. Commonwealth, Department of Transportation†	791 A.2d 1287	12
2007	Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania, Inc. v. Commonwealth, Insurance Department†	929 A.2d 1243	7
2006	Chiro-Med Review Company v. Bureau of Workers'compensation· Concurrence†	908 A.2d 980	7
2002	In Re Estate of Wagner†	791 A.2d 444	7
2004	BD. OF SUP'RS OF EAST ROCKHILL TP. v. Mager· Dissent†	855 A.2d 917	6
2004	Wesley United Methodist Church v. Dauphin County Board of Assessment Appeals†	844 A.2d 57	5
2003	Noah's Ark Christian Child Care Center, Inc. v. Zoning Hearing Board†	831 A.2d 756	3
2007	Tsucalas v. Holy Xenophone Monastery†	939 A.2d 1008	2
2002	Brockway v. Workers' Compensation Appeal Board†	792 A.2d 631	2

Showing the 11 most-cited of 11 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 Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is partisan election.
Which court was Doris A. Smith-Ribner on?: Doris A. Smith-Ribner was a Judge of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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