California Civil Code

The Civil Code of California is a collection of statutes for the State of California. The code is made up of statutes which govern the general obligations and rights of persons within the jurisdiction of California. It was based on a civil code originally prepared by David Dudley Field II for the state of New York (but which was never enacted in that state). It is one of the 29 California Codes and was among the first four enacted in 1872.

Though the Code is organized in a manner similar to many civil law civil codes, many of its provisions are codifications of well-established common law principles. For example, it contains a definition of consideration, a principle in the common law of contracts which has no direct equivalent in civil law systems. Similarly, it codifies the mailbox rule that communication of acceptance is effective when dropped in the mail, which is a feature unique to the common law.

First adopted in 1872 and signed into law by then Governor Newton Booth, the Civil Code is divided – similarly to its civil law analogues – into four divisions: "the first relating to persons"; "the second to property"; "the third to obligations"; "the fourth contains general provisions relating to the three preceding divisions." Division One contains laws which govern personal rights while Division Two contains laws which govern property rights. Division Three codifies the substantive contract law of the State of California as well as various regulations relating to agency, mortgages, unsecured loans, extensions of credit, and other areas of California law. Division Four defines remedies available in lawsuits, what constitutes a nuisance, various maxims of jurisprudence, and other miscellaneous provisions which relate "to the three preceding divisions."

Although revolutionary for its time, the California Civil Code was actually the third successfully enacted codification of the substance of the common law. The first was the Code of Georgia of 1861 (largely based on the work of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb independent of Field), which is the ancestor of today's Official Code of Georgia Annotated. Then Dakota Territory beat California to the punch by becoming the first jurisdiction to enact Field's civil code in 1866.

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