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 1973 / Served to 1994

Hollis G. Best

Presiding Justice, California Court of Appeal

Hollis G. Best was a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1973. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1973–1994 · 21 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1973	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1984	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1990	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Best authored 133 published opinions for the court (1979–1994), plus 2 dissents and 2 concurrences. Most cited: People v. Pitts (169 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. 137 of these were attributed to Best 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
1990	People v. Pitts†	223 Cal. App. 3d 606	169
1985	In Re Marriage of Watts†	171 Cal. App. 3d 366	91
1988	BP Alaska Exploration, Inc. v. Superior Court· Concurrence†	199 Cal. App. 3d 1240	79
1985	Fireman's Fund Insurance v. City of Turlock†	170 Cal. App. 3d 988	59
1989	Tulare County Department of Public Social Services v. Albert B.†	215 Cal. App. 3d 361	58
1988	People v. Jeff· Dissent†	204 Cal. App. 3d 309	54
1988	David J. v. Evette H.†	198 Cal. App. 3d 533	54
1989	Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Sequoia Insurance†	211 Cal. App. 3d 1285	53
1987	People v. Young†	190 Cal. App. 3d 248	46
1993	Harris v. Atlantic Richfield Co.†	14 Cal. App. 4th 70	43
1989	People v. Hallock†	208 Cal. App. 3d 595	42
1989	SUTCO CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, INC. v. Modesto High School Dist.†	208 Cal. App. 3d 1220	39
1989	Hurlbut v. Sonora Community Hospital†	207 Cal. App. 3d 388	39
1988	Martin v. U-Haul Co. of Fresno†	204 Cal. App. 3d 396	37
1992	People v. King†	3 Cal. App. 4th 882	35

Showing the 15 most-cited of 137 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 Hollis G. Best on?: Hollis G. Best was a Presiding 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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21 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).