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 1985 / Served to 2014

H Walter Croskey

Justice, California Court of Appeal

H Walter Croskey was a Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1985. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1985–2014 · 29 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1985	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Croskey authored 500 published opinions for the court (1986–2014), plus 2 dissents and 4 concurrences. Most cited: Los Angeles County Department of Children & Family Services v. Paul M. (486 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. 123 of these were attributed to Croskey 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
2012	Los Angeles County Department of Children & Family Services v. Paul M.†	211 Cal. App. 4th 754	486
1990	Careau & Co. v. Security Pacific Business Credit, Inc.	222 Cal. App. 3d 1371	465
2002	In Re Angel B.	118 Cal. Rptr. 2d 482	437
2009	In Re Alexis E.	171 Cal. App. 4th 438	428
1996	In Re Heather A.	52 Cal. App. 4th 183	370
2013	The People v. Super. Ct.†	215 Cal. App. 4th 1279	317
1999	In Re Estate of Fain	89 Cal. Rptr. 2d 618	277
2001	CHATEAU CHAMBERAY HOA v. Associated Internat. Ins. Co.	108 Cal. Rptr. 2d 776	245
2001	Smith v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance	113 Cal. Rptr. 2d 399	198
2007	Fremont Indemnity Co. v. Fremont General Corp.	55 Cal. Rptr. 3d 621	194
1996	State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Superior Court	45 Cal. App. 4th 1093	159
1998	Downey Venture v. LMI Ins. Co.	78 Cal. Rptr. 2d 142	155
1997	Mattco Forge, Inc. v. Arthur Young & Co.· Concurrence†	52 Cal. App. 4th 820	155
2008	Bullock v. Phillip Morris USA, Inc.	71 Cal. Rptr. 3d 775	154
2013	Garrett v. Howmedica Osteonics Corp.†	214 Cal. App. 4th 173	144

Showing the 15 most-cited of 506 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 H Walter Croskey on?: H Walter Croskey 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

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29 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).