The words of a contract are to be understood in their ordinary and popular sense, rather than according to their strict legal meaning; unless used by the parties in a technical sense, or unless a special meaning is given to them by usage, in which case the latter must be followed.
Cal. Civ. Code § 1644
INTERPRETATION OF CONTRACTS
Applied in 219 court decisions — leading case 2 Cal. 4th 1254 - Bank of the West v. Superior Court (1992)
Most recently applied in Kristen Schertzer v. Bank of America, Na (July 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.