A person not heard from in five years is presumed to be dead.
Cal. Evid. Code § 667
Presumptions Affecting the Burden of Proof
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case Liberty Transport, Inc. v. Harry W. Gorst Co. (1991)
Most recently applied in 104 Cal. App. 4th 487 - In Re Starr (December 2002)
Amended by Stats. 1983, Ch. 201, Sec. 1.
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.