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 1985 / Served to 1992

Michael J. Phelan

Justice, California Court of Appeal

Michael J. Phelan was a Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1985. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1985–1992 · 7 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1985	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Phelan authored 57 published opinions for the court (1993–1999). Most cited: Badie v. Bank of America (666 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
1998	Badie v. Bank of America	79 Cal. Rptr. 2d 273	666
1998	People v. Kwok	63 Cal. App. 4th 1236	157
1995	Stanley v. Richmond	35 Cal. App. 4th 1070	126
1996	In Re Marriage of Braud	45 Cal. App. 4th 797	83
1994	Vallejo Development Co. v. Beck Development Co.	24 Cal. App. 4th 929	74
1998	Application Group, Inc. v. Hunter Group, Inc.	61 Cal. App. 4th 881	71
1993	Sequoyah Hills Homeowners Ass'n v. City of Oakland	23 Cal. App. 4th 704	69
1993	Heggstad v. Heggstad	16 Cal. App. 4th 943	66
1997	People v. Josh W.	55 Cal. App. 4th 1	59
1995	Sparks v. Owens-Illinois, Inc.	32 Cal. App. 4th 461	56
1996	Pettus v. Cole	49 Cal. App. 4th 402	55
1998	Gibble v. Car-Lene Research, Inc.	78 Cal. Rptr. 2d 892	49
1994	Contra Costa County Social Service Department v. Sandra W.	26 Cal. App. 4th 685	49
1993	In Re Hirenia C.	18 Cal. App. 4th 504	48
1993	People v. Van Pham	15 Cal. App. 4th 61	47

Showing the 15 most-cited of 57 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 Michael J. Phelan on?: Michael J. Phelan was a Justice of the California Court of Appeal.

Sources

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

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7 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).