An interpretation which gives effect is preferred to one which makes void.
Cal. Civ. Code § 3541
MAXIMS OF JURISPRUDENCE
Applied in 42 court decisions — leading case 14 Cal. 3d 831 - Estate of McDill (1975)
Most recently applied in 245 Cal. Rptr. 3d 838 - Subcontracting Concepts (CT), LLC v. De Melo (April 2019)
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.