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 1989 / Served to 1995

Thomas J. Brennan

Judge, Michigan Court of Appeals

Thomas J. Brennan was a Judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals, who joined the court in 1989. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1989–1995 · 6 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1989	Michigan Court of Appeals	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Brennan authored 43 published opinions for the court (1989–1995), plus 4 dissents. Most cited: In Re Forfeiture of $1,159,420 (67 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 Brennan 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	In Re Forfeiture of $1,159,420†	486 N.W.2d 326	67
1991	Downer v. Detroit Receiving Hospital†	477 N.W.2d 146	43
1989	Bryant v. Brannen· Dissent†	446 N.W.2d 847	34
1995	Hauser v. Reilly· Dissent†	536 N.W.2d 865	27
1993	Hosking v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance†	499 N.W.2d 436	20
1990	Nuriel v. YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION†	463 N.W.2d 206	18
1991	Adams v. Shepherd Products, US, Inc†	468 N.W.2d 332	17
1992	People v. Antoine†	486 N.W.2d 92	15
1992	People v. Reynolds†	489 N.W.2d 128	13
1990	Knowles v. Knowles· Dissent†	462 N.W.2d 777	13
1995	People v. Smith†	535 N.W.2d 248	12
1992	Precision Pipe & Supply, Inc v. Meram Construction, Inc†	489 N.W.2d 166	12
1991	Norgan v. American Way Life Insurance†	469 N.W.2d 23	12
1990	VanDyke v. League General Insurance†	457 N.W.2d 141	12
1990	Walling v. Allstate Insurance†	455 N.W.2d 736	12

Showing the 15 most-cited of 47 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 was Thomas J. Brennan on?: Thomas J. Brennan was 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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6 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).