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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Washington Supreme Court / Joined 1972 / Served to 1994

Robert Brachtenbach

Justice, Washington Supreme Court

Robert Brachtenbach was a Justice of the Washington Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1972. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1931–2008
Tenure: 1972–1994 · 22 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1972	Washington Supreme Court	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Brachtenbach authored 387 published opinions for the court (1973–2009), plus 42 dissents and 45 concurrences. Most cited: Cowiche Canyon Conservancy v. Bosley (1,592 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. 102 of these were attributed to Brachtenbach 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
1992	Cowiche Canyon Conservancy v. Bosley	828 P.2d 549	1,592
1986	Hangman Ridge Training Stables, Inc. v. Safeco Title Insurance	719 P.2d 531	879
1994	State v. Hill	870 P.2d 313	742
1985	State v. Guloy· Concurrence†	705 P.2d 1182	721
1993	Washington State Physicians Insurance Exchange & Ass'n v. Fisons Corp.· Concurrence†	858 P.2d 1054	618
1990	Berg v. Hudesman	801 P.2d 222	543
1984	Thompson v. St. Regis Paper Company	685 P.2d 1081	536
1990	In Re the Personal Restraint of Cook	792 P.2d 506	460
1986	In Re the Detention of LaBelle	728 P.2d 138	448
1988	Haberman v. Washington Public Power Supply System	750 P.2d 254	400
1994	Progressive Animal Welfare Society v. University of Washington· Dissent†	125 Wash. 2d 243	373
1994	Waste Management of Seattle, Inc. v. Utilities & Transportation Commission†	123 Wash. 2d 621	325
1988	Grimwood v. University of Puget Sound, Inc.	753 P.2d 517	319
1986	Tank v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Co.	715 P.2d 1133	314
1995	Queen City Farms, Inc. v. Central Nat'l Ins. Co. of Omaha	882 P.2d 703	306

Showing the 15 most-cited of 474 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 Washington Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Robert Brachtenbach on?: Robert Brachtenbach was a Justice of the Washington 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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22 years on the Washington Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).