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 1868 / Served to 1869

Lewis Bartholomew Woodruff

Judge, New York Court of Appeals

Lewis Bartholomew Woodruff was a Judge of the New York Court of Appeals (5 judges, selected by gubernatorial appointment), who joined the court in 1868. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1809–1875
Tenure: 1868–1869 · 1 yr
Education: Yale 1830

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1868	New York Court of Appeals	–	–

Education

Yale University

B.A.

1830

Judicial Record

In our data, Woodruff authored 34 published opinions for the court (1868–1869), plus 1 dissent. Most cited: Moore v. Littel (172 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. 35 of these were attributed to Woodruff 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
1869	Moore v. Littel†	41 N.Y. 66	172
1868	Taylor v. Root†	4 Keyes 335	21
1869	Grippen v. New York Central Railroad†	40 N.Y. 34	20
1868	French v. Buffalo, New York & Erie Railroad†	4 Keyes 108	14
1868	Matthews v. Duryee· Dissent†	4 Keyes 525	14
1868	Warmer v. Blakeman†	4 Keyes 487	10
1869	Dodge v. Wellman†	1 Abb. Ct. App. 512	7
1868	Smith v. N. Y. Central R. R.†	4 Abb. Ct. App. 262	7
1868	Smith v. New York Central Railroad†	4 Keyes 180	6
1868	East River Bank v. Kennedy†	4 Keyes 279	6
1869	Bowman v. Tallman†	40 How. Pr. 1	4
1868	Marvin v. Marvin†	4 Keyes 9	4
1868	Like v. McKinstry†	4 Keyes 397	4
1868	Van Alstyne v. National Commercial Bank†	7 Trans. App. 241	4
1868	Van Alstyne v. National Commercial Bank†	4 Abb. Ct. App. 449	3

Showing the 15 most-cited of 35 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 Lewis Bartholomew Woodruff on?: Lewis Bartholomew Woodruff was a Judge of the New York Court of Appeals.

Sources

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

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1 year 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).