In cases of uncertainty not removed by the preceding rules, the language of a contract should be interpreted most strongly against the party who caused the uncertainty to exist.
Cal. Civ. Code § 1654
INTERPRETATION OF CONTRACTS
Applied in 137 court decisions — leading case 67 Cal. App. 4th 779 - Badie v. Bank of America (1998)
Most recently applied in Kristen Schertzer v. Bank of America, Na (July 2024)
Amended by Stats. 1982, Ch. 1120, Sec. 1.
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.