Northern District of Texas / Appointed 1992 / Served to 2002

Elton Joe Kendall

Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas

Appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 and confirmed by voice vote, Elton Joe Kendall was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He earned a law degree from Baylor University School of Law in 1980. Rulings & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born
1954 · age 72
Appointed by
George H.W. Bush, 1992
Confirmed
by voice vote
Education
Southern Methodist 1977 · Baylor Law 1980
Succeeded by
James E. Kinkeade

Federal judicial service

YearCourtAppointed byVote
1992Northern District of TexasG.H.W. Bush (R)Voice vote

Party letters show the appointing president’s party, not the judge’s own. A voice vote means the chamber approved aloud. No senator-by-senator tally is recorded.

Confirmation vote

Voice vote

The Senate approved this confirmation aloud, with no senator-by-senator tally recorded. Recorded roll-call votes begin in 1989.

Education

Judicial Record

Caseload & case types

In our data, Kendall was assigned 4,234 district-court cases (1987–2001). Median time from filing to termination: 160 days across 4,230 closed cases.

Prisoner & habeas39%
Contract17%
Civil rights13%
Personal-injury torts7%
Other federal statutes6%
Labor & ERISA4%
Other14%

Case assignment is from CourtListener’s PACER-derived docket records: a partial sample, not a complete caseload, reflecting the judge last assigned each case. How we count.

In our data, Kendall authored 61 published opinions for the court (1992–2002). Most cited: Finlan v. City of Dallas (32 citations).

A selective record from published opinions in the CourtListener corpus, not every ruling; most unpublished district orders are not included. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge.

Recent & notable rulings

Showing the 15 most-cited of 61 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

Who appointed Elton Joe Kendall?
President George H.W. Bush appointed Elton Joe Kendall to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in 1992.
Was Elton Joe Kendall appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?
Elton Joe Kendall was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, a Republican. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.
What was Elton Joe Kendall's confirmation vote?
Elton Joe Kendall was confirmed by voice vote on May 12, 1992. No senator-by-senator tally was recorded.
Which court was Elton Joe Kendall on?
Elton Joe Kendall was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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9 years on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Data as of 2026-08-10. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).