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 1979 / Served to 1987

Gerald Jorgensen Lewis

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

Gerald Jorgensen Lewis was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal (89 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), who joined the court in 1979. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1933 · age 93
Tenure: 1979–1987 · 8 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1979	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1984	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Lewis authored 39 published opinions for the court (1983–2001), plus 8 dissents and 2 concurrences. Most cited: Clothesrigger, Inc. v. GTE Corp. (76 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. 12 of these were attributed to Lewis 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
1987	Clothesrigger, Inc. v. GTE Corp.· Dissent†	191 Cal. App. 3d 605	76
1985	Abellon v. Hartford Insurance· Dissent†	167 Cal. App. 3d 21	58
1984	Honey Springs Homeowners Ass'n v. Board of Supervisors· Dissent†	157 Cal. App. 3d 1122	56
1987	Best v. California Apprenticeship Council· Concurrence†	193 Cal. App. 3d 1448	37
1985	Mueller v. J. C. Penney Co.	173 Cal. App. 3d 713	37
1986	San Diego County Department of Social Services v. Ivey	186 Cal. App. 3d 1559	24
1986	Brose v. Union-Tribune Publishing Co.· Dissent†	183 Cal. App. 3d 1079	23
1986	In Re Marriage of Slivka	183 Cal. App. 3d 159	23
1985	People v. McElrath	175 Cal. App. 3d 178	23
1986	Augustyn v. Superior Court	186 Cal. App. 3d 1221	22
1985	People v. Frye	166 Cal. App. 3d 941	22
2001	Levine v. Weis	108 Cal. Rptr. 2d 562	20
1987	Camarena v. Sequoia Insurance	190 Cal. App. 3d 1089	20
1986	Cox Cable San Diego, Inc. v. County of San Diego	185 Cal. App. 3d 368	19
1987	Native Sun Investment Group v. Ticor Title Insurance	189 Cal. App. 3d 1265	18

Showing the 15 most-cited of 49 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 Gerald Jorgensen Lewis on?: Gerald Jorgensen Lewis was an Associate 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

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8 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).