How do judges of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court / Joined 1938 / Served to 1959

James Ronan

Justice, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

James Ronan was a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, who joined the court in 1938. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1884–1959
Tenure: 1938–1959 · 21 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1938	Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court	–	–

Education

Boston University
Boston University

Judicial Record

In our data, Ronan authored 846 published opinions for the court (1938–1959). Most cited: Wellesley College v. Attorney General (194 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. 602 of these were attributed to Ronan 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
1943	Wellesley College v. Attorney General†	313 Mass. 722	194
1939	Charles I. Hosmer, Inc. v. Commonwealth†	302 Mass. 495	102
1949	Selectmen of Topsfield v. State Racing Commission†	324 Mass. 309	98
1942	Simon v. Town of Needham†	311 Mass. 560	91
1946	Saint Luke's Hospital v. Labor Relations Commission†	320 Mass. 467	90
1939	Berry v. Kyes†	304 Mass. 56	86
1956	A-Z Servicenter, Inc. v. Segall	138 N.E.2d 266	83
1946	Bolster v. Commissioner of Corporations & Taxation†	319 Mass. 81	83
1949	Caires v. Building Commissioner†	323 Mass. 589	81
1946	Pineo v. White†	320 Mass. 487	75
1941	Assessors of Quincy v. Boston Consolidated Gas Co.†	309 Mass. 60	75
1941	Leahy v. Inspector of Buildings†	308 Mass. 128	75
1955	Barry v. Covich	124 N.E.2d 921	72
1942	Commonwealth v. Giacomazza†	311 Mass. 456	72
1948	Lowell v. City of Boston†	322 Mass. 709	71

Showing the 15 most-cited of 846 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 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court was James Ronan on?: James Ronan was a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

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 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).