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 2010

James A. Ardaiz

Presiding Justice, California Court of Appeal

James A. Ardaiz was a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1985. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1947 · age 79
Tenure: 1985–2010 · 25 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1985	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1988	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Ardaiz authored 168 published opinions for the court (1984–2010), plus 2 dissents and 5 concurrences. Most cited: Merced Mutual Insurance v. Mendez (138 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. 22 of these were attributed to Ardaiz 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
1989	Merced Mutual Insurance v. Mendez	213 Cal. App. 3d 41	138
1992	Sosinsky v. Grant	6 Cal. App. 4th 1548	126
2008	CDF FIREFIGHTERS v. Maldonado	70 Cal. Rptr. 3d 667	107
1995	Steve J. v. Superior Court	35 Cal. App. 4th 798	87
1998	Kazensky v. City of Merced	76 Cal. Rptr. 2d 356	82
1992	People v. Zaring	8 Cal. App. 4th 362	75
2001	Unnamed Physician v. Board of Trustees of Saint Agnes Medical Center	113 Cal. Rptr. 2d 309	67
1999	People v. Hustead	87 Cal. Rptr. 2d 875	64
1992	Espinoza v. MacHonga	9 Cal. App. 4th 268	52
2006	People v. Ryan	41 Cal. Rptr. 3d 277	50
1990	Selma Pressure Treating Co. v. Osmose Wood Preserving Co. of America, Inc.†	221 Cal. App. 3d 1601	49
2000	People v. Herrera	98 Cal. Rptr. 2d 911	47
1993	Rodriguez v. Superior Court	14 Cal. App. 4th 1260	46
2000	In Re Antonio C.	100 Cal. Rptr. 2d 218	45
1999	People v. Callahan	87 Cal. Rptr. 2d 838	45

Showing the 15 most-cited of 175 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 James A. Ardaiz on?: James A. Ardaiz 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

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

25 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).