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 1981 / Active

Judith M. Ashmann-Gerst

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

Judith M. Ashmann-Gerst is an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal, serving since 1981. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1944 · age 82
Tenure: Since 1981 · 45 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1981	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1986	California Court of Appeal	–	–
2001	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Education

Whittier College	magna cum laude	1965
University of California-Los Angeles		1972

Judicial Record

In our data, Ashmann-Gerst authored 51 published opinions for the court (2002–2017), plus 2 dissents. Most cited: People v. Campos (104 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. 53 of these were attributed to Ashmann-Gerst 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
2007	People v. Campos†	67 Cal. Rptr. 3d 904	104
2003	Shamsian v. Atlantic Richfield Co.†	132 Cal. Rptr. 2d 635	88
2004	Environmental Charter High School v. Centinela Valley Union High School District†	18 Cal. Rptr. 3d 417	58
2015	Granadino v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.†	236 Cal. App. 4th 411	47
2016	Minnegren v. Nozar†	4 Cal. App. 5th 500	43
2008	Employers Mutual Casualty Co. v. Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance†	169 Cal. App. 4th 340	41
2009	Manhattan Loft, LLC v. Mercury Liquors, Inc.†	173 Cal. App. 4th 1040	40
2009	People v. Gonzalez†	178 Cal. App. 4th 1325	39
2010	People v. Wong†	186 Cal. App. 4th 1433	34
2007	Forrest v. Department of Corporations· Dissent†	58 Cal. Rptr. 3d 466	33
2014	Cochran v. Schwan's Home Service, Inc.†	228 Cal. App. 4th 1137	32
2015	Hi-Desert Medical Center v. Douglas†	239 Cal. App. 4th 717	31
2006	Sababin v. Superior Court†	50 Cal. Rptr. 3d 266	31
2002	People v. Feaster†	125 Cal. Rptr. 2d 896	29
2010	Dillingham-Ray Wilson v. City of Los Angeles†	182 Cal. App. 4th 1396	26

Showing the 15 most-cited of 53 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 Judith M. Ashmann-Gerst on?: Judith M. Ashmann-Gerst 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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45 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).