Except upon the written agreement of the parties, or on oral stipulation of the parties in open court, or as otherwise provided in this division, in a proceeding for dissolution of marriage or for legal separation of the parties, the court shall, either in its judgment of dissolution of the marriage, in its judgment of legal separation of the parties, or at a later time if it expressly reserves jurisdiction to make such a property division, divide the community estate of the parties equally.
Cal. Fam. Code § 2550
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Applied in 23 court decisions — leading case 31 Cal. 4th 657 - Mejia v. Reed (2003)
Most recently applied in 10 Cal. 5th 861 - Sass v. Cohen (December 2020)
Enacted by Stats. 1992, Ch. 162, Sec. 10
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.