Except as otherwise provided by law, a party has the burden of proof as to each fact the existence or nonexistence of which is essential to the claim for relief or defense that he is asserting.
Cal. Evid. Code § 500
General
Applied in 171 court decisions — leading case 25 Cal. 4th 826 - Aguilar v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (2001)
Most recently applied in People v. E.P. (In re E.P.) (May 2019)
Enacted by Stats. 1965, Ch. 299.
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.