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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Michigan Court of Appeals / Joined 2002 / Active

Pat M. Donofrio

Judge, Michigan Court of Appeals

Pat M. Donofrio is a Judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals (30 judges, selected by nonpartisan election), serving since 2002. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: Since 2002 · 24 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2002	Michigan Court of Appeals	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Donofrio authored 61 published opinions for the court (2003–2015), plus 1 dissent and 3 concurrences. Most cited: People v. Waclawski (528 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. 65 of these were attributed to Donofrio 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
2009	People v. Waclawski†	780 N.W.2d 321	528
2014	People v. Lopez†	305 Mich. App. 686	278
2012	Loutts v. Loutts· Concurrence†	298 Mich. App. 21	184
2011	Augustine v. Allstate Insurance†	292 Mich. App. 408	112
2011	People v. Nunley†	294 Mich. App. 274	97
2006	Willett v. Waterford Charter Township†	718 N.W.2d 386	86
2005	Diamond v. Witherspoon†	696 N.W.2d 770	85
2007	Griswold Properties, LLC v. Lexington Insurance†	741 N.W.2d 549	84
2012	Seldon v. Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation†	297 Mich. App. 427	76
2004	Morales v. Michigan Parole Bd.†	676 N.W.2d 221	76
2007	National Waterworks, Inc v. International Fidelity & Surety, Ltd†	739 N.W.2d 121	48
2006	Farmers Insurance Exchange v. Farm Bureau General Insurance†	724 N.W.2d 485	46
2007	Gonzalez v. St John Hospital & Medical Center†	739 N.W.2d 392	44
2009	People v. Smith†	772 N.W.2d 428	43
2005	Wheeler v. Shelby Charter Township†	697 N.W.2d 180	41

Showing the 15 most-cited of 65 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 Court of Appeals reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court is Pat M. Donofrio on?: Pat M. Donofrio is a Judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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