No lapse of time can legalize a public nuisance, amounting to an actual obstruction of public right.
Cal. Civ. Code § 3490
PUBLIC NUISANCES
Applied in 8 court decisions — leading case 44 Cal. App. 4th 1160 - Beck Development Co. v. Southern Pacific Transportation Co. (1996)
Most recently applied in 227 Cal. Rptr. 3d 499 - People v. Conagra Grocery Prods. Co. (November 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.