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 1981 / Served to 2000

Zerne P. Haning III

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

Zerne P. Haning III was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal (89 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), who joined the court in 1981. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1981–2000 · 19 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1981	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1982	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Haning authored 214 published opinions for the court (1983–2000), plus 4 dissents and 10 concurrences. Most cited: In Re the Marriage of Smith (216 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. 41 of these were attributed to Haning 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
1990	In Re the Marriage of Smith· Concurrence†	225 Cal. App. 3d 469	216
1986	Fox v. Pollack	181 Cal. App. 3d 954	116
1996	In Re Aaron B.	46 Cal. App. 4th 843	86
1989	Mountain Lion Coalition v. Fish & Game Commission	214 Cal. App. 3d 1043	76
1993	Betz v. Pankow	16 Cal. App. 4th 931	69
1989	Aerojet-General Corp. v. Superior Court	211 Cal. App. 3d 216	63
1988	Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. v. Superior Court	200 Cal. App. 3d 272	63
1985	In Re Marriage of Bergman· Concurrence†	168 Cal. App. 3d 742	61
1993	Bennett v. McCall	19 Cal. App. 4th 122	60
1993	Betz v. Pankow	16 Cal. App. 4th 919	58
1992	Elsea v. Saberi	4 Cal. App. 4th 625	56
1999	Robert L. Cloud & Associates, Inc. v. Mikesell	82 Cal. Rptr. 2d 143	52
1985	Titan Group, Inc. v. Sonoma Valley County Sanitation District	164 Cal. App. 3d 1122	50
1991	People v. Mendez	234 Cal. App. 3d 1773	49
1991	Guido v. Koopman	1 Cal. App. 4th 837	48

Showing the 15 most-cited of 228 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 Zerne P. Haning III on?: Zerne P. Haning III 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

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

19 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).