If a party to an obligation gives notice to another, before the latter is in default, that he will not perform the same upon his part, and does not retract such notice before the time at which performance upon his part is due, such other party is entitled to enforce the obligation without previously performing or offering to perform any conditions upon his part in favor of the former party.
Cal. Civ. Code § 1440
Conditional Obligations
Applied in 45 court decisions — leading case 14 Cal. 4th 479 - Romano v. Rockwell International, Inc. (1996)
Most recently applied in 223 Cal. Rptr. 3d 547 - Mission Beverage Co. v. Pabst Brewing Co. (September 2017)
Enacted 1872.
How often courts cite this section
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.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.