Justice Gonzalo C. Martinez

Blogger Daniel Faigin's ballot analysis recommends retaining Martinez, finding nothing disqualifying. His discussion is drawn explicitly from 'Google AI' output.

• Conclusion: Retain (Yes).
• Reports, from Google AI, no ethical scandals or discipline and a unanimous 2024 confirmation as Division Seven's presiding justice.
• Notes his prior roles as Newsom's deputy judicial appointments secretary and as a deputy solicitor general, saying such ties draw 'standard philosophical scrutiny' about independence from the executive.

Reform California's Los Angeles County voter guide recommends DO NOT RETAIN for Martinez, as it does for 30 of the 33 Second District justices it lists. No reasons are given.

• Martinez: DO NOT RETAIN.
• Only Victoria Chavez, Frances Rothschild, and Kenneth Yegan get RETAIN in the Second District.
• Also recommends DO NOT RETAIN for both Supreme Court justices.

The Secretary of State's official guide lists Gonzalo C. Martinez, Presiding Justice, Division Seven, among the Second District justices on the Nov. 3, 2026 retention ballot. It gives names and divisions only.

• Martinez is listed as Presiding Justice of Division Seven, with Associate Justice Natalie Stone.
• No qualifications, ratings, or arguments appear on this page.

A ballotscope compilation of Presiding Justice Martinez's published opinions listed on courts.ca.gov from October 2024 to October 2026: 12 authored opinions and no separate opinions (no published dissents or concurrences). It covers published opinions only; most appellate decisions are unpublished.

• Authored: 12; separate opinions: 0.
• The 12 entries include repeat versions of the same case: Bradsbery v. Vicar Operating appears three times (opinion plus two modifications) and Catholic Medical Mission Bd. v. Bonta twice, so about nine distinct cases.
• Mostly civil and public law: tenant ordinances (Apartment Assn. v. City of Los Angeles), public-sector labor (L.A. County Professional Peace Officers Assn.), CEQA (Center for Biological Diversity v. County of Los Angeles), wage-and-hour (Bradsbery), a suit against the Attorney General (Catholic Medical Mission Bd. v. Bonta), and a case against a law firm (Kaushansky v. Stonecroft Attorneys).
• Criminal and juvenile captions are few: P. v. Padron, In re Tuilaepa, In re T.R.

Martinez wrote for Division Seven upholding Los Angeles's Eviction Threshold Ordinance (no nonpayment eviction until a tenant owes more than one month's fair market rent) against Unlawful Detainer Act preemption, while striking the city's Relocation Assistance Ordinance as preempted by the Costa-Hawkins Act.

• Eviction threshold: a substantive defense ('a substantive defense with an impact on timing,' quoting SFAA 2018), not a procedural barrier, so it is within the city's police power; distinguishes the notice-and-cure rules struck in Pasadena (2025) and SFAA (2024).
• Expressly reserves whether a city may eliminate nonpayment as a ground for eviction: 'is not before us.'
• Relocation assistance (three months' fair market rent when a tenant leaves after a large lawful rent increase): 'financially penalizes landlords' for rights Costa-Hawkins grants and is not saved by the 'basis for eviction' clause; the city conceded this under Pasadena.
• Rejects intervenors' argument that Pasadena misapplied Riverside, relying on Chevron v. County of Monterey (2023). The relocation part (D) was later left unpublished.

Presiding Justice Martinez's opinion for a unanimous Division Seven panel ordering Los Angeles County to bargain with the Professional Peace Officers Association before outsourcing security work at the Hall of Administration. A union's waiver of statutory bargaining rights must be 'clear and unmistakable', and the MOU's clause that management need not negotiate 'any reorganization' was too vague to waive bargaining over contracting out.

• Under the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, outsourcing that adversely affects a bargaining unit is a mandatory bargaining subject; the County bore the burden to prove waiver.
• The MOU's notice provisions on transfer of functions say nothing about the bargaining right, so they waive nothing.
• The 'any reorganization' clause is 'vague and ambiguous' and can reasonably be read to preserve only core management decisions such as layoffs; general management-rights clauses preserve prerogatives rather than waive bargaining rights.
• Reverses a trial court and the County's labor commission (ERCOM), both of which had relied on dictionary definitions of 'reorganization.'

Presiding Justice Martinez's opinion for a unanimous panel affirming a judgment that set aside Los Angeles County's approval of Tejon Ranch's Centennial project, about 19,333 homes on 12,000 acres in the Antelope Valley. The published part holds the environmental impact report was prejudicially misleading because it counted energy suppliers' cap-and-trade compliance as offsetting 96 percent of the project's emissions. The unpublished part also finds the off-site wildfire analysis inadequate but rejects the environmental groups' cross-appeal on wildlife, native plants, and alternatives.

• The project is not a covered entity under cap-and-trade; CEQA Guidelines section 15126.4(c)(3) allows only offsets 'not otherwise required', so suppliers' mandatory compliance cannot be double-counted as project mitigation.
• Distinguishes Association of Irritated Residents (2017), where the project site itself (a refinery) was a covered entity; at oral argument Tejon did not ask the court to uphold that case and conceded a key emissions table was misleading.
• Gives weight to the Natural Resources Agency's 2009 statement of reasons and a CARB comment letter saying cap-and-trade was not meant to mitigate land-use projects.
• Unpublished part: the one-paragraph off-site wildfire discussion was inadequate; the Center could share in relief won by Climate Resolve, which settled; but the EIR's wildlife, vegetation, and alternatives analyses were adequate.

Long document: only the first 60,000 characters were summarized.

A second order modifying footnote 3 of Presiding Justice Martinez's April 21, 2025 opinion in Bradsbery v. Vicar Operating, with the unmodified opinion attached. The opinion holds that revocable, prospective written waivers of the meal period for five-to-six-hour shifts are enforceable absent evidence of unconscionability or coercion. The order adds that the two possibly applicable wage orders are identical on meal periods, so the court need not decide which applies.

• Second modification replaces footnote 3 again, now stating both wage orders cover veterinary technicians and have identical meal-period terms; no change in judgment.
• Holding and reasoning are the same as in the opinion attached to the first modification order: text silent on timing, history supports prospective waivers, Brinker and the 2003 DLSE letter do not control.
• The court notes plaintiffs did not claim the waivers were unknowing, coerced, or irrevocable, and reserves those questions.

An order modifying a footnote in Presiding Justice Martinez's April 21, 2025 opinion in Bradsbery v. Vicar Operating, with the unmodified opinion attached. The opinion, for a unanimous panel, holds that a revocable written waiver signed in advance can waive the meal period for shifts of five to six hours, absent evidence it was unconscionable or coercive.

• The order corrects footnote 3, which had swapped which wage order covers which industry; no change in judgment.
• Labor Code section 512 and Wage Orders 4 and 5 are silent on the timing and form of a waiver; because the text supports both readings, the court turns to legislative and administrative history.
• IWC history shows written prospective waivers were adopted elsewhere as protections for both sides, not a bar on prospective waivers.
• Brinker (2012) did not address when a meal period may be waived; a 2003 DLSE opinion letter on an agricultural wage order does not control.
• The court says it 'would hesitate' to uphold a waiver that was coerced, unknowing, or not freely revocable; plaintiffs made no such claims.

Presiding Justice Martinez's opinion for a unanimous panel, here with a March 27, 2025 order modifying it and denying rehearing. Two charities won trial-court rulings that parts of California's charitable-solicitation law were unconstitutional prior restraints, plus statewide injunctions against the Attorney General. The court vacates the injunctions because the charities never pleaded or proved a right to them, and affirms the trial court's reformation and severance of the cease-and-desist provision.

• The Attorney General did not challenge the constitutional rulings, only the injunctions; the court holds permanent injunctions 'are not issued as a matter of course, even in cases implicating the First Amendment.'
• The charities' complaints did not request injunctive relief; on remand the trial court decides whether to allow amendment and whether an injunction is proven.
• No categorical bar on both reforming and severing a statute (Kopp); the charities did not show the Legislature would prefer invalidation.
• Attorney fee awards to the charities vacated for reconsideration; the modification deletes the words ', and we reject it' from one sentence about injunctions reaching nonparties.

Long document: only the first 30,000 characters were summarized.

Courthouse News reports that a Division Seven panel led by Martinez upheld the rejection of Tejon Ranch's 12,000-acre Centennial development, holding that Los Angeles County misused California's cap-and-trade program to count away 96% of the project's greenhouse gas emissions.

• Quotes Martinez's opinion: the county 'failed to proceed in a manner required by law when it applied the cap-and-trade program' to the project's emissions, rendering the EIR 'prejudicially misleading.'
• The court held CEQA guidelines contain an 'additionality requirement' barring use of energy providers' cap-and-trade compliance to offset a land-use project.
• The court upheld the trial court's rejection of the environmental groups' claims on wildlife, vegetation, and alternatives.
• Joined by Justices Natalie Stone and Gail Feuer.

Bay Area Reporter coverage of Martinez's unanimous confirmation as Division Seven's presiding justice. It reports his JNE rating of 'well qualified', anonymous jurists' praise mixed with concern about his limited appellate experience, and his own remarks on judging.

• Commission on Judicial Appointments confirmed him 3-0 on May 14, 2024, less than a year after he joined the appellate bench.
• Of 13 people the Attorney General's office contacted, none objected; two jurists said his short tenure and the division's case backlog could make the presiding role challenging at first.
• Martinez, quoted: 'I will pause and think about whether what I am doing is the right thing under the circumstances and the law.'
• Supporters, including Ana Matosantos and 15 bar associations, described him as 'measured, matter of fact, collaborative, and insightful.'

The court's biography says Martinez has been Presiding Justice of Division Seven since 2024, after a year as its associate justice; earlier he was Gov. Newsom's deputy judicial appointments secretary, a deputy solicitor general, and an appellate partner at Squire Patton Boggs.

• Associate Justice, Division Seven, 2023-2024; confirmed Presiding Justice in 2024.
• Worked in the Governor's Office as deputy judicial appointments secretary and in legal affairs.
• As deputy solicitor general, represented the state in the U.S. and California Supreme Courts.
• Certified appellate specialist; elected to the American Law Institute in 2025.