How do judges of the Michigan Supreme Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Michigan Supreme Court / Joined 1961 / Served to 1967

Otis M. Smith

Justice, Michigan Supreme Court

Otis M. Smith was a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1961. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1922–1994
Tenure: 1961–1967 · 6 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1961	Michigan Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Syracuse University

Judicial Record

In our data, Smith authored 99 published opinions for the court (1962–1966), plus 2 dissents and 8 concurrences. Most cited: Guerdon Industries, Inc. v. Fidelity & Casualty Co. of New York (86 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. 21 of these were attributed to Smith 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
1963	Guerdon Industries, Inc. v. Fidelity & Casualty Co. of New York	123 N.W.2d 143	86
1965	People v. Ferguson	135 N.W.2d 357	82
1966	People v. Schram	142 N.W.2d 662	73
1964	In Re Carey	126 N.W.2d 727	69
1966	Associated Truck Lines, Inc. v. Public Service Commission· Concurrence†	140 N.W.2d 515	55
1965	Mosier v. Carney· Concurrence†	138 N.W.2d 343	53
1964	People v. Oberstaedt	127 N.W.2d 354	51
1966	Fenestra Inc. v. Gulf American Land Corp.	141 N.W.2d 36	50
1965	Osius v. Dingell	134 N.W.2d 657	46
1965	Edgar's Warehouse, Inc. v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co.	134 N.W.2d 746	46
1966	Sutter v. Biggs	139 N.W.2d 684	43
1965	Bronson v. J. L. Hudson Co.	135 N.W.2d 388	41
1965	Township of Pittsfield v. Malcolm	134 N.W.2d 166	41
1963	Douglas v. Edgewater Park Co.	119 N.W.2d 567	37
1963	Roll v. City of Troy	120 N.W.2d 804	34

Showing the 15 most-cited of 109 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 Michigan Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Otis M. Smith on?: Otis M. Smith was a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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6 years on the Michigan Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).