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 1974 / Served to 1990

Franklin D. McDaniel

Justice, California Court of Appeal

Franklin D. McDaniel was a Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1974. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1920–2008
Tenure: 1974–1990 · 15 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1974	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, McDaniel authored 157 published opinions for the court (1925–1997), plus 5 dissents and 2 concurrences. Most cited: California Shoppers, Inc. v. Royal Globe Insurance Co. (170 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. 18 of these were attributed to McDaniel 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
1985	California Shoppers, Inc. v. Royal Globe Insurance Co.	175 Cal. App. 3d 1	170
1984	Wallis v. Superior Court	160 Cal. App. 3d 1109	108
1978	Austero v. National Casualty Co. of Detroit	84 Cal. App. 3d 1	95
1975	People v. Morales	49 Cal. App. 3d 134	72
1982	Nelson v. State of California	139 Cal. App. 3d 72	70
1981	Southland Mechanical Constructors Corp. v. Nixen	119 Cal. App. 3d 417	66
1979	Weaver v. Superior Court	95 Cal. App. 3d 166	66
1984	Fundin v. Chicago Pneumatic Tool Co.	152 Cal. App. 3d 951	64
1983	Cohen v. Kite Hill Community Assn.	142 Cal. App. 3d 642	58
1990	Semore v. Pool· Concurrence†	217 Cal. App. 3d 1087	57
1985	Hulsey v. Elsinore Parachute Center	168 Cal. App. 3d 333	56
1990	Danieley v. Goldmine Ski Associates, Inc.	218 Cal. App. 3d 111	52
1982	Laguna Publishing Co. v. Golden Rain Foundation	131 Cal. App. 3d 816	50
1979	Larwin-Southern California, Inc. v. JGB Investment Co.	101 Cal. App. 3d 626	43
1977	Ellena v. State of California· Dissent†	69 Cal. App. 3d 245	43

Showing the 15 most-cited of 164 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 Franklin D. McDaniel on?: Franklin D. McDaniel was a 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

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

15 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).