How do judges of the New York Court of Appeals reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

New York Court of Appeals / Joined 1935 / Served to 1943

John Ridley Finch

Judge, New York Court of Appeals

John Ridley Finch was a Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, who joined the court in 1935. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1873–1965
Tenure: 1935–1943 · 8 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1935	New York Court of Appeals	–	–

Education

Yale University
Columbia University in the City of New York

Judicial Record

In our data, Finch authored 836 published opinions for the court (1880–1943), plus 72 dissents and 4 concurrences. Most cited: Sibbald v. . the Bethlehem Iron Company (445 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.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1881	Sibbald v. . the Bethlehem Iron Company	83 N.Y. 378	445
1882	Story v. . New York Elevated R.R. Co.· Dissent	90 N.Y. 122	301
1939	Matter of Otto v. Steinhilber	24 N.E.2d 851	278
1937	Good Health Dairy Products Corp. v. Emery	9 N.E.2d 758	190
1882	Rich v. New York Central & Hudson River Railroad	87 N.Y. 382	166
1942	Matter of Lipman (Haeuser Shellac Co.)	43 N.E.2d 817	164
1938	Ingersoll v. Liberty Bank of Buffalo	14 N.E.2d 828	161
1937	John E. Rosasco Creameries, Inc. v. Cohen	11 N.E.2d 908	159
1882	Smith v. . Edwards	88 N.Y. 92	142
1887	Taylor v. . City of Yonkers	11 N.E. 642	138
1940	Krause v. Krause	26 N.E.2d 290	133
1940	In Re the Claim of Morton	30 N.E.2d 369	132
1883	Marvin v. . Brooks	94 N.Y. 71	131
1940	Marcus v. Village of Mamaroneck	28 N.E.2d 856	125
1941	Matter of Marburg v. Cole	36 N.E.2d 113	119

Showing the 15 most-cited of 912 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 New York Court of Appeals reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court was John Ridley Finch on?: John Ridley Finch was a Judge of the New York Court of Appeals.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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8 years on the New York Court of Appeals. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).