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

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Supreme Court of Hawaii / Joined 1982 / Served to 1992

Frank D. Padgett

Justice, Supreme Court of Hawaii

Frank D. Padgett was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii, who joined the court in 1982. He previously served on the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1923 · age 103
Tenure: 1982–1992 · 10 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1980	Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals	–	–
1982	Supreme Court of Hawaii	–	–

Education

Harvard University
Harvard University

Judicial Record

In our data, Padgett authored 215 published opinions for the court (1980–1992), plus 4 dissents and 6 concurrences. Most cited: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1357 v. Hawaiian Telephone Co. (87 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. 222 of these were attributed to Padgett 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
1986	International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1357 v. Hawaiian Telephone Co.†	713 P.2d 943	87
1984	State v. Fields· Concurrence†	686 P.2d 1379	79
1983	State v. Motta†	657 P.2d 1019	64
1991	Henderson v. Professional Coatings Corp.· Concurrence†	819 P.2d 84	53
1985	State v. Akana· Concurrence†	706 P.2d 1300	43
1984	Myers v. Cohen†	688 P.2d 1145	43
1980	Beerman v. Toro Manufacturing Corp.†	615 P.2d 749	42
1991	Hawaiian Insurance & Guaranty Co. v. Financial Security Insurance· Dissent†	72 Haw. 80	41
1990	Leibert v. Finance Factors, Ltd.†	788 P.2d 833	39
1985	State v. Ikaika· Dissent†	698 P.2d 281	37
1992	Doe v. Grosvenor Properties (Hawaii) Ltd.· Concurrence†	829 P.2d 512	36
1983	State v. Robins†	660 P.2d 39	36
1987	Ganiron v. Hawaii Insurance Guaranty†	744 P.2d 1210	35
1982	Chedester v. Stecker†	643 P.2d 532	34
1990	State v. Levinson†	795 P.2d 845	33

Showing the 15 most-cited of 225 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 Supreme Court of Hawaii reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court was Frank D. Padgett on?: Frank D. Padgett was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii.

Sources

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

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