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 1970 / Served to 1974

John G. Gabbert

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

John G. Gabbert was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal (89 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), who joined the court in 1970. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1909–2013
Tenure: 1970–1974 · 4 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1970	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Gabbert authored 33 published opinions for the court (1968–1974). Most cited: Baker v. Beech Aircraft Corp. (84 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
1974	Baker v. Beech Aircraft Corp.	39 Cal. App. 3d 315	84
1972	Employers Casualty Insurance v. Foust	29 Cal. App. 3d 382	40
1971	Middlebrook-Anderson Co. v. Southwest Savings & Loan Ass'n	18 Cal. App. 3d 1023	38
1972	People v. Iverson	26 Cal. App. 3d 598	31
1972	In Re Marriage of Karlin	24 Cal. App. 3d 25	30
1972	People v. McDowell	27 Cal. App. 3d 864	29
1968	Byers v. Board of Supervisors	262 Cal. App. 2d 148	28
1971	Stilson v. Moulton-Niguel Water District	21 Cal. App. 3d 928	27
1970	People v. Vick	11 Cal. App. 3d 1058	25
1973	People v. Johnson	32 Cal. App. 3d 988	23
1973	East San Bernardino County Water District v. City of San Bernardino	33 Cal. App. 3d 942	19
1971	Cucamonga County Water District v. Southwest Water Co.	22 Cal. App. 3d 245	19
1968	Jack v. Wood	258 Cal. App. 2d 639	19
1972	People v. McManis	26 Cal. App. 3d 608	18
1971	Waggaman v. Northwestern Security Insurance	16 Cal. App. 3d 571	17

Showing the 15 most-cited of 33 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 John G. Gabbert on?: John G. Gabbert was 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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4 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).