A contract is to be interpreted according to the law and usage of the place where it is to be performed; or, if it does not indicate a place of performance, according to the law and usage of the place where it is made.
Cal. Civ. Code § 1646
INTERPRETATION OF CONTRACTS
Applied in 72 court decisions — leading case 75 Cal. App. 4th 832 - Binder v. Aetna Life Insurance (1999)
Most recently applied in Daniel Berman v. Freedom Financial Network LLC (April 2022)
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.