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 2003 / Active

Joan Kathleen Irion

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

Joan Kathleen Irion is an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal, serving since 2003. She previously served on the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1956 · age 70
Tenure: Since 2003 · 22 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2000	Superior Court of California, County of San Diego	–	–
2003	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Education

University of California-Davis	with high honors	1974
San Diego State University	Public Administration	1976
University of California-Davis		1979

Judicial Record

In our data, Irion authored 132 published opinions for the court (2004–2019), plus 1 dissent and 1 concurrence. Most cited: Gomes v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. (265 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. 81 of these were attributed to Irion 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
2011	Gomes v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc.†	192 Cal. App. 4th 1149	265
2007	In Re Valerie A.	61 Cal. Rptr. 3d 403	148
2009	Cristler v. Express Messenger Systems, Inc.	171 Cal. App. 4th 72	120
2012	Douglas E. Barnhart, Inc. v. CMC Fabricators, Inc.†	211 Cal. App. 4th 230	105
2007	In Re Marriage of Feldman	64 Cal. Rptr. 3d 29	98
2009	Loeffler v. Medina	174 Cal. App. 4th 1495	97
2007	San Diego County Health & Human Services Agency v. Scott F.†	157 Cal. App. 4th 962	82
2016	569 East County Boulevard LLC v. Backcountry Against the Dump, Inc.†	6 Cal. App. 5th 426	80
2012	People v. Dunn†	205 Cal. App. 4th 1086	80
2012	People v. Kurtenbach†	204 Cal. App. 4th 1264	80
2011	Carter v. Prime Healthcare Paradise Valley LLC†	198 Cal. App. 4th 396	77
2012	San Diego County Health & Human Services Agency v. Carlos R.†	205 Cal. App. 4th 111	76
2010	People v. Wynn	184 Cal. App. 4th 1210	71
2010	Lawson v. Superior Court	180 Cal. App. 4th 1372	70
2006	Banker's Hill, Hillcrest, Park West Community Preservation Group v. City of San Diego	42 Cal. Rptr. 3d 537	62

Showing the 15 most-cited of 134 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 is Joan Kathleen Irion on?: Joan Kathleen Irion is 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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22 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).