A battery is any willful and unlawful use of force or violence upon the person of another.
Cal. Penal Code § 242
Assault and Battery
Applied in 259 court decisions — leading case Johnson v. United States (2010)
Most recently applied in United States v. Troy Brasby (February 2023)
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.