California Appellate Justices

Appellate courts speak through majority opinions, which must express the view of the panel. A separately written dissent speaks for its author alone. In my experience, that is why dissents are often where a justice explains his or her own reasoning most directly — the treatment of precedent, the reading of a statute, the weight given to procedure. These pages collect published opinions in which each justice dissented, with a short neutral note on what the majority held, and link to the full opinions so that readers can draw their own conclusions. A dissent is not controlling authority, and nothing here predicts how any justice will decide a future case. Some judges rarely write separately; where no published dissenting opinion has been identified for a judge, these pages say so rather than imply that one exists.

Thomas Ogden, Esq.
Certified Specialist in Appellate Law
State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization