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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Michigan Supreme Court / Joined 1958 / Served to 1984

Thomas M. Kavanagh

Justice, Michigan Supreme Court

Thomas M. Kavanagh was a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1958. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1909–1975
Tenure: 1958–1984 · 26 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1958	Michigan Supreme Court	–	–
1969	Michigan Supreme Court	–	–

Education

University of Detroit Mercy

Judicial Record

In our data, Kavanagh authored 458 published opinions for the court (1958–1984), plus 66 dissents and 53 concurrences. Most cited: People v. Ginther (2,467 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. 361 of these were attributed to Kavanagh 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
1973	People v. Ginther· Concurrence†	212 N.W.2d 922	2,467
1984	People v. Robideau· Dissent†	355 N.W.2d 592	408
1979	Placek v. City of Sterling Heights· Concurrence†	275 N.W.2d 511	391
1972	People v. Robinson†	194 N.W.2d 709	371
1974	People v. Jackson· Concurrence†	217 N.W.2d 22	357
1975	People v. Ora Jones†	236 N.W.2d 461	308
1975	People v. Chamblis†	236 N.W.2d 473	270
1972	People v. Tanner†	199 N.W.2d 202	259
1982	Raska v. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance†	314 N.W.2d 440	258
1971	Traverse City School Dist. v. Atty. Gen.· Concurrence†	185 N.W.2d 9	231
1967	Clark v. Dalman	150 N.W.2d 755	216
1960	Parker v. Port Huron Hospital	105 N.W.2d 1	190
1974	Kropf v. City of Sterling Heights†	215 N.W.2d 179	181
1972	People v. Lorentzen· Concurrence†	194 N.W.2d 827	181
1959	City of Lansing v. Township of Lansing	97 N.W.2d 804	174

Showing the 15 most-cited of 577 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 Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Thomas M. Kavanagh on?: Thomas M. Kavanagh was a Justice of the Michigan 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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26 years on the Michigan Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).