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 2006

Nick J. Dibiaso

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

Nick J. Dibiaso was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1985. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1985–2006 · 20 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1985	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1989	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Dibiaso authored 81 published opinions for the court (1989–2005), plus 1 dissent and 2 concurrences. Most cited: Sonora Diamond Corp. v. Superior Court (363 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. 84 of these were attributed to Dibiaso 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
2000	Sonora Diamond Corp. v. Superior Court†	99 Cal. Rptr. 2d 824	363
1998	People v. Lopez†	78 Cal. Rptr. 2d 66	221
1997	Stanislaus County Department of Social Services v. Noeline P.†	56 Cal. App. 4th 1143	176
1996	Fresno County Department of Social Services v. Edward H.†	43 Cal. App. 4th 584	175
1996	Brantley v. Pisaro†	42 Cal. App. 4th 1591	110
1995	People v. Saelee†	35 Cal. App. 4th 27	69
1992	Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Superior Court†	4 Cal. App. 4th 544	67
1998	Cathina W. v. Bessie W.†	80 Cal. Rptr. 2d 480	65
1997	Kern Cty. Dep't of Human Servs. v. Deon C.†	54 Cal. App. 4th 1330	62
1989	Tulare County Department of Public Social Services v. Albert B.· Concurrence†	215 Cal. App. 3d 361	58
1995	People v. Whitham†	38 Cal. App. 4th 1282	55
2001	Pack v. Kings County Human Services Agency†	107 Cal. Rptr. 2d 594	41
1999	State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance v. Federal Insurance· Concurrence†	86 Cal. Rptr. 2d 20	37
1994	S. C. Anderson, Inc. v. Bank of America National Trust & Savings Ass'n†	24 Cal. App. 4th 529	36
2004	Farris v. Fireman's Fund Insurance†	14 Cal. Rptr. 3d 618	35

Showing the 15 most-cited of 84 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 Nick J. Dibiaso on?: Nick J. Dibiaso 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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20 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).