No part of it is retroactive, unless expressly so declared.
Cal. Civ. Code § 3
EFFECT OF THE 1872 CODES
Known as the The Civil Code
The act spans §§ 1–23 (29 sections).
Applied in 53 court decisions — leading case 44 Cal. 3d 1188 - Evangelatos v. Superior Court (1988)
Most recently applied in 231 Cal. Rptr. 3d 20 - People v. Chavez (March 2018)
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.