The obligation of a surety must be neither larger in amount nor in other respects more burdensome than that of the principal; and if in its terms it exceeds it, it is reducible in proportion to the principal obligation.
Cal. Civ. Code § 2809
Liability of Sureties
Applied in 25 court decisions — leading case 21 Cal. 4th 28 - Cates Construction, Inc. v. Talbot Partners (1999)
Most recently applied in 636 F. App'x 704 - Indymac Bank, F.S.B. v. Aryana/Olive Grove Land Development LLC (January 2016)
Amended by Stats. 1939, Ch. 453.
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.