Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara / Joined 2010 / Active

Patricia J. Kelly

Presiding Judge, Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara

Patricia J. Kelly is a Presiding Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara (12 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), serving since 2010. She previously served on the Florida District Courts of Appeal. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: Since 2010 · 16 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2001	Florida District Courts of Appeal	–	–
2010	Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara	–	–
2017	Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara	–	–
2018	Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara	–	–

Education

University of Florida

Judicial Record

In our data, Kelly authored 484 published opinions for the court (1961–2019), plus 2 dissents and 7 concurrences. Most cited: Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Steadman (61 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. 269 of these were attributed to Kelly 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
2007	Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Steadman	968 So. 2d 592	61
2014	Lopez v. State†	135 So. 3d 539	40
2004	Cooperative Leasing, Inc. v. Johnson	872 So. 2d 956	40
2005	Sims v. Cristinzio	898 So. 2d 1004	31
2003	Stovall v. Cooper	860 So. 2d 5	30
2009	WellCare of Florida, Inc. v. American International Specialty Lines Insurance Co.	16 So. 3d 904	26
2004	Campbell v. State	884 So. 2d 190	26
2002	J.T. v. Department of Children & Family Services†	819 So. 2d 270	25
2003	Garcia v. State	846 So. 2d 660	24
2003	Solomon v. Solomon	861 So. 2d 1218	23
2002	J.P.C. v. Department of Children & Family Services†	819 So. 2d 264	23
2003	Williams v. State	850 So. 2d 627	22
2009	Fell v. Carlin	6 So. 3d 119	20
2005	Rollins, Inc. v. Lighthouse Bay Holdings	898 So. 2d 86	20
2003	O'NEAL v. State	862 So. 2d 91	20

Showing the 15 most-cited of 493 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 Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court is Patricia J. Kelly on?: Patricia J. Kelly is a Presiding Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara.

Sources

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

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16 years on the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).