The law never requires impossibilities.
Cal. Civ. Code § 3531
MAXIMS OF JURISPRUDENCE
Applied in 14 court decisions — leading case Veterans' Industries, Inc. v. Lynch (1970)
Most recently applied in 227 Cal. Rptr. 3d 243 - People v. N. River Ins. Co. (December 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.