How do judges of the Florida District Courts of Appeal reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.

Florida District Courts of Appeal / Joined 1974 / Served to 1987

Victor M. Cawthon

Judge, Florida District Courts of Appeal

Victor M. Cawthon was a Judge of the Florida District Courts of Appeal, who joined the court in 1974. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1918–2005
Tenure: 1974–1987 · 13 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1974	Florida District Courts of Appeal	–	–

Education

University of Miami

Judicial Record

In our data, Cawthon authored 12 published opinions for the court (1976–1993). Most cited: Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Green (28 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
1976	Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Green	327 So. 2d 65	28
1990	Fitzgerald v. Fitzgerald	558 So. 2d 122	11
1991	State, Dept. of Corrections v. Koch	582 So. 2d 5	10
1991	Perkins v. State	585 So. 2d 390	9
1991	Holy Temple Church of God in Christ, Inc. v. Maxwell	578 So. 2d 877	7
1991	Braden v. State	575 So. 2d 756	7
1981	Nelson v. Seaboard Coast Line R. Co.	398 So. 2d 980	7
1993	State v. Knight	622 So. 2d 188	6
1990	Jack Eckerd Corp. v. Smith	558 So. 2d 1060	6
1991	Stoppa v. Water Oak Management Corp.	584 So. 2d 161	5
1991	State v. SCM Glidco Organics Corp.	592 So. 2d 710	4
1991	Buschman v. Clark	583 So. 2d 799	4

Showing the 12 most-cited of 12 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 Florida District Courts of Appeal reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court was Victor M. Cawthon on?: Victor M. Cawthon was a Judge of the Florida District Courts of Appeal.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

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13 years on the Florida District Courts of Appeal. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).