When any person is a danger to others, or to himself, or gravely disabled as a result of inebriation, a peace officer, member of the attending staff, as defined by regulation, of an evaluation facility designated by the county, or other person designated by the county may, upon reasonable cause, take, or cause to be taken, the person into civil protective custody and place him in a facility designated by the county and approved by the State Department of Alcohol and Drug Abuse as a facility for 72-hour treatment and evaluation of inebriates.
Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 5170
Detention of Individuals Under the Influence of Alcohol for Evaluation and Treatment
Known as the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act
The act spans §§ 5000–5550 (263 sections).
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case 42 Cal. 3d 1101 - Sundance v. Municipal Court (1986)
Most recently applied in 30 Cal. 4th 446 - Teter v. City of Newport Beach (April 2003)
Amended by Stats. 1978, Ch. 429.
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.