The object of a contract must be lawful when the contract is made, and possible and ascertainable by the time the contract is to be performed.
Cal. Civ. Code § 1596
Object of a Contract
Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case Contractor's Safety Ass'n v. California Compensation Insurance (1957)
Most recently applied in 206 Cal. App. 4th 594 - San Diego City Firefighters v. Board of Administration of San Diego City Employees' Retirement System (May 2012)
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.