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Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 25602

In General

Known as the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act

The act spans §§ 23000–25762 (737 sections).

Applied in 47 court decisions — leading case 24 Cal. 3d 890 - Taylor v. Superior Court (1979)

Most recently applied in Camp Richardson Resort, Inc. v. Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance (December 2015)

Amended by Stats. 1978, Ch. 929.

How often courts cite this section

1979199020002010201570
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(a) Every person who sells, furnishes, gives, or causes to be sold, furnished, or given away, any alcoholic beverage to any habitual or common drunkard or to any obviously intoxicated person is guilty of a misdemeanor.

(b) No person who sells, furnishes, gives, or causes to be sold, furnished, or given away, any alcoholic beverage pursuant to subdivision (a) of this section shall be civilly liable to any injured person or the estate of such person for injuries inflicted on that person as a result of intoxication by the consumer of such alcoholic beverage.

(c) The Legislature hereby declares that this section shall be interpreted so that the holdings in cases such as Vesely v. Sager (5 Cal. 3d 153), Bernhard v. Harrah’s Club (16 Cal. 3d 313) and Coulter v. Superior Court (____ Cal. 3d ____) be abrogated in favor of prior judicial interpretation finding the consumption of alcoholic beverages rather than the serving of alcoholic beverages as the proximate cause of injuries inflicted upon another by an intoxicated person.

Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.