A surety is exonerated, except so far as he or she may be indemnified by the principal, if by any act of the creditor, without the consent of the surety the original obligation of the principal is altered in any respect, or the remedies or rights of the creditor against the principal, in respect thereto, in any way impaired or suspended. However, nothing in this section shall be construed to supersede subdivision (b) of Section 2822.
Cal. Civ. Code § 2819
Exoneration of Sureties
Applied in 12 court decisions — leading case 21 Cal. 4th 28 - Cates Construction, Inc. v. Talbot Partners (1999)
Most recently applied in In Re Chemtura Corp. (April 2011)
Amended by Stats. 1993, Ch. 149, 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.