“Shall” is mandatory and “may” is permissive.
Cal. Prob. Code § 12
PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS
Known as the Probate Code
The act spans §§ 1–13 (13 sections).
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case 16 Cal. 4th 90 - People v. Ledesma (1997)
Most recently applied in S.H. v. M.M. (In re C.E.) (January 2019)
Enacted by Stats. 1990, Ch. 79.
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.