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 1964 / Served to 1986

Robert O. Staniforth

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

Robert O. Staniforth was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal (89 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), who joined the court in 1964. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1916–1995
Tenure: 1964–1986 · 22 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1964	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1976	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Staniforth authored 218 published opinions for the court (1977–1993), plus 19 dissents and 12 concurrences. Most cited: A & M PRODUCE CO. v. FMC Corp. (259 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. 47 of these were attributed to Staniforth 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
1982	A & M PRODUCE CO. v. FMC Corp.· Concurrence†	135 Cal. App. 3d 473	259
1984	People v. Casa Blanca Convalescent Homes, Inc.	159 Cal. App. 3d 509	120
1979	Board of Medical Quality Assurance v. Gherardini	93 Cal. App. 3d 669	93
1985	Salton Bay Marina, Inc. v. Imperial Irrigation District	172 Cal. App. 3d 914	81
1985	People v. Baumann	176 Cal. App. 3d 67	77
1984	Betts v. Allstate Insurance	154 Cal. App. 3d 688	76
1980	Fed-Mart Corp. v. Pell Enterprises, Inc.	111 Cal. App. 3d 215	66
1978	People v. Keller	76 Cal. App. 3d 827	61
1985	Fields v. Blue Shield of California	163 Cal. App. 3d 570	60
1979	People v. Guevara	88 Cal. App. 3d 86	60
1985	Abellon v. Hartford Insurance	167 Cal. App. 3d 21	58
1977	People v. Vela Prado	67 Cal. App. 3d 267	56
1983	People v. Martin	150 Cal. App. 3d 148	52
1978	People v. Mills	81 Cal. App. 3d 171	51
1980	H & M ASSOCIATES v. City of El Centro· Concurrence†	109 Cal. App. 3d 399	49

Showing the 15 most-cited of 249 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 Robert O. Staniforth on?: Robert O. Staniforth was an Associate 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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22 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).