How do judges of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia / Joined 1985 / Served to 1995

W. T. Brotherton Jr.

Justice, Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia

W. T. Brotherton Jr. was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, who joined the court in 1985. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1926–1997
Tenure: 1985–1995 · 10 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1985	Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Brotherton authored 257 published opinions for the court (1985–1994), plus 34 dissents and 7 concurrences. Most cited: Conaway v. Eastern Associated Coal Corp. (162 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. 95 of these were attributed to Brotherton 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
1987	Conaway v. Eastern Associated Coal Corp.	358 S.E.2d 423	162
1986	Soliva v. Shand, Morahan & Co., Inc.	345 S.E.2d 33	124
1986	Frank's Shoe Store v. West Virginia Human Rights Commission· Concurrence†	365 S.E.2d 251	94
1985	Hechler v. Casey· Dissent†	333 S.E.2d 799	94
1994	Francis O. Day Co. v. Director, Division of Environmental Protection	443 S.E.2d 602	75
1989	Committee on Legal Ethics v. Roark· Concurrence†	382 S.E.2d 313	75
1985	Bell v. Inland Mutual Insurance· Dissent†	332 S.E.2d 127	67
1988	State v. Barker	366 S.E.2d 642	65
1991	Funeral Services by Gregory, Inc. v. Bluefield Community Hospital	413 S.E.2d 79	64
1993	In Re Lacey P.	433 S.E.2d 518	63
1986	Troy Mining Corp. v. Itmann Coal Co.	346 S.E.2d 749	62
1988	Bias v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance· Concurrence†	365 S.E.2d 789	53
1987	Wiggins v. Eastern Associated Coal Corp.· Dissent†	357 S.E.2d 745	52
1992	Joy Technologies, Inc. v. Liberty Mutual Insurance	421 S.E.2d 493	49
1992	State v. Delaney	417 S.E.2d 903	47

Showing the 15 most-cited of 298 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 Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was W. T. Brotherton Jr. on?: W. T. Brotherton Jr. was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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10 years on the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).