An oral authorization is sufficient for any purpose, except that an authority to enter into a contract required by law to be in writing can only be given by an instrument in writing.
Cal. Civ. Code § 2309
Authority of Agents
Applied in 60 court decisions — leading case Seymour v. Oelrichs (1909)
Most recently applied in Jacobs v. Locatelli (February 2017)
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.