The California Code of Civil Procedure (abbreviated to Code Civ. Proc. in the

California Style Manual The ''California Style Manual'', as provided by order of the California Supreme Court and pursuant to statute, is "the official organ for the styles to be used in the publication of the Official Reports" of decisions by California's courts. A pers ...

or just CCP in treatises and other less formal contexts) is a California code enacted by the California State Legislature in March 1872 as the general codification of the law of

civil procedure Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits (as opposed to procedures in criminal law matters). These rules govern how a lawsuit or case may be commenced; what kin ...

in the U.S. state of California, along with the three other original Codes. It contains most California statutes that govern the filing and litigation of

lawsuits - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil acti ...

in the Superior Courts of California, as well as legal notices that must be given in a variety of circumstances. It also includes statutes of limitations that control the period of time during which a lawsuit may be commenced. The Code originally governed the legal profession, but those were later moved to the Business and Professions Code. Originally, the CCP was the codification of the Practice Act of 1851, as amended and revised. In turn, the Practice Act had been modeled after the New York Code of Civil Procedure of 1850, which was largely drafted by the law reformer

David Dudley Field II David Dudley Field II (February 13, 1805April 13, 1894) was an American lawyer and law reformer who made major contributions to the development of American civil procedure. His greatest accomplishment was engineering the move away from common ...

. Hence, California is considered to be a "Field Code" state. The code took effect at twelve noon on 1 January 1873. Like the 28 other California Codes, the CCP is frequently amended by the Legislature. Unlike most other states, California never followed the federal trend towards transferring authority over procedural law to the courts through statutes like the federal

Rules Enabling Act The Rules Enabling Act (ch. 651, , ) is an Act of Congress that gave the judicial branch the power to promulgate the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Amendments to the Act allowed for the creation of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure an ...

. Instead, the California Rules of Court cover only relatively minor matters such as the formatting of court papers and case management rules implementing the Trial Court Delay Reduction Act of 1986. Nearly all important procedural provisions (i.e., the ones that can make or break a case) continue to exist in the form of CCP sections. As a result, whenever the

Judicial Council of California The Judicial Council of California is the rule-making arm of the California court system. In accordance with the California Constitution and under the leadership of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California, the council is responsible f ...

identifies a major defect in California civil procedure, it cannot fix it by promulgating a new court rule, but must instead lobby the Legislature and Governor to amend the Code. Today, the California Code of Civil Procedure is comprehensive only with regard to trial court procedure. As a result of a bill pushed through the Legislature at the suggestion of Chief Justice Phil S. Gibson in 1941, appellate procedure in California is governed primarily by the California Rules of Court (specifically, Title 8, Appellate Rules).

Legal interpretation

Section 4 states that the provisions of the code and all proceedings under it are to be "liberally" construed: the

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipres ...

rule that statutes "are to be strictly construed" has no application within the code.

Pleading

As a Field Code state, California continues to subscribe to the "primary right" or "ultimate fact" theory of

pleading In law as practiced in countries that follow the English models, a pleading is a formal written statement of a party's claims or defenses to another party's claims in a civil action. The parties' pleadings in a case define the issues to be adju ...

(also known as "fact pleading") which has been traditionally followed by Field Code states. This means that California adheres to an arcane distinction between what constitutes pleading of a mere "fact", versus an "ultimate fact", versus a "conclusion of law".''Perry v. Robertson,'
201 Cal. App. 3d 333, 339 n.3
(1988). California is one of two states, the other being

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

, which uses the

demurrer A demurrer is a pleading in a lawsuit that objects to or challenges a pleading filed by an opposing party. The word ''demur'' means "to object"; a ''demurrer'' is the document that makes the objection. Lawyers informally define a demurrer as a de ...

as the primary pre-answer attack on the complaint. Most states and the federal courts have switched to modern "notice pleading" and use the motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action instead of the demurrer.

Law of Evidence

The CCP partially codified the

law of evidence The law of evidence, also known as the rules of evidence, encompasses the rules and legal principles that govern the proof of facts in a legal proceeding. These rules determine what evidence must or must not be considered by the trier of f ...

, but in 1965, its evidentiary provisions were repealed and replaced by the new

California Evidence Code The California Evidence Code (abbreviated to Evid. Code in the California Style Manual) is a California code that was enacted by the California State Legislature on May 18, 1965 to codify the formerly mostly common-law law of evidence. Section 351 ...

, which unlike the CCP, was deliberately intended to displace and supersede the common law of evidence.

Notes

References

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External links

California Code of Civil Procedure

Civil Procedure Code Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits (as opposed to procedures in criminal law matters). These rules govern how a lawsuit or case may be commenced; what kind ...