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 1989 / Served to 1998

Patricia K. Sepulveda

Justice, California Court of Appeal

Patricia K. Sepulveda was a Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1989. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1989–1998 · 9 yrs

Judicial service

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

Judicial Record

In our data, Sepulveda authored 95 published opinions for the court (1999–2010). Most cited: Howard v. American National Fire Insurance (116 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
2010	Howard v. American National Fire Insurance	187 Cal. App. 4th 498	116
2008	People v. Fiu	165 Cal. App. 4th 360	85
2006	Boyle v. CertainTeed Corp.	40 Cal. Rptr. 3d 501	83
2008	Hoopes v. Dolan	168 Cal. App. 4th 146	64
2008	Cerna v. City of Oakland	75 Cal. Rptr. 3d 168	60
2000	DeZerega v. Meggs	99 Cal. Rptr. 2d 366	59
2008	People v. Meneses	165 Cal. App. 4th 1648	55
2010	California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. v. Virga	181 Cal. App. 4th 30	54
2000	People v. Escobar	98 Cal. Rptr. 2d 696	54
2002	Swain v. California Casualty Insurance Co.	120 Cal. Rptr. 2d 808	53
2000	Heiner v. Kmart Corp.	100 Cal. Rptr. 2d 854	53
2000	People v. Frawley	98 Cal. Rptr. 2d 555	51
2003	People v. Ortiz	134 Cal. Rptr. 2d 467	50
2002	Emeryville Redevelopment Agency v. Elementis Pigments, Inc.	125 Cal. Rptr. 2d 12	40
2000	Franklin & Franklin v. 7-Eleven Owners for Fair Franchising	102 Cal. Rptr. 2d 770	40

Showing the 15 most-cited of 95 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 Patricia K. Sepulveda on?: Patricia K. Sepulveda was a 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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9 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).