A contract must receive such an interpretation as will make it lawful, operative, definite, reasonable, and capable of being carried into effect, if it can be done without violating the intention of the parties.
Cal. Civ. Code § 1643
INTERPRETATION OF CONTRACTS
Applied in 177 court decisions — leading case 67 Cal. App. 4th 779 - Badie v. Bank of America (1998)
Most recently applied in 2024 IL App (4th) 230250 - Behrouz v. Freeport Renaisaance LLC. (April 2024)
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.