Law of California
The law of California consists of several levels, including constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law, as well as case law. The California Codes form the general statutory law, and most state agency regulations are available in the California Code of Regulations.
Primary sources
Constitutional law
The foremost source of state law is the Constitution of California, which like other state constitutions derives its power and legitimacy from the sovereignty of the people. The California Constitution in turn is subordinate to the Constitution of the United States, which is the supreme law of the land.Legislation
Pursuant to the state constitution, the California State Legislature and the Governor have enacted the California Statutes, which in turn have been codified into the 29 California Codes. The first four codes, enacted in 1872, were the Civil Code, the Code of Civil Procedure, the Penal Code, and the Political Code. However, these did not constitute a complete codification, and statutes on subject matter inappropriate for the four codes were simply not codified. In 1929, the Legislature finally established the California Code Commission as a permanent government agency, and it spent the next thirty years slowly codifying the rest of the California Statutes. Upon completing this task in 1953, the Code Commission was replaced by the California Law Revision Commission.Strangely, although there is a Code of Civil Procedure, there was never a Code of Criminal Procedure; California's law of criminal procedure is codified in Part 2 of the Penal Code. The newest code is the Family Code, which was split off from the Civil Code in 1994.
Regulations
Pursuant to certain broadly worded statutes, state agencies have promulgated an enormous body of regulations, which are codified in the California Code of Regulations and carry the force of law to the extent they do not conflict with any statutes or the state or federal Constitutions. Pursuant to the California Administrative Procedure Act, a "Notice of Proposed Action" is published in the California Regulatory Notice Register and at least 45 days are required for public hearings and comment before being reviewed and approved by the California Office of Administrative Law and codified in the CCR.The Judicial Council of California has also promulgated the California Rules of Court, which includes such publications as the Standards of Judicial Administration and the Ethics Standards for Neutral Arbitrators in Contractual Arbitrations, under the authority of article VI, section 6, of the Constitution of California.
Local ordinances
California has several different types of local governments throughout the state. California is divided into 58 counties, including San Francisco and municipal areas incorporated as cities. All of the state's territory is within one of the counties, but not all of it is within the boundaries of a city; the areas not under city control are called unincorporated areas and are directly managed by county governments. School districts, which are independent of cities and counties, handle public education. Many other functions, especially in unincorporated areas, are handled by special districts, which include municipal utility districts, transit districts, vector control districts, and geologic hazard abatement districts.Counties and incorporated cities may promulgate ordinances which are usually codified in county codes and city codes, respectively. Every act prohibited or declared unlawful, and every failure to perform an act required, by the ordinances are misdemeanor crimes, unless otherwise specified as infractions.
Binding legal precedents
California's legal system is based on common law. Like all U.S. states except Louisiana, California has a reception statute providing for the "reception" of English law. is as follows: "The common law of England, so far as it is not repugnant to or inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, or the Constitution or laws of this State, is the rule of decision in all the courts of this State." This statute was signed into law on April 13, 1850, after several months of debate over whether California should adopt common law, civil law, or a hybrid of both. Governor Peter Hardeman Burnett touched off the debate by recommending to California's first state legislature that the state should borrow Louisiana's Civil Code and Code of Practice and use the common law for everything else. A minority of lawyers led by John W. Dwinelle wanted to adopt the civil law, but the majority of lawyers and Senate Judiciary Committee chair Elisha Oscar Crosby wanted to adopt the common law, and the latter position was duly adopted by the Judiciary Committee in its report to the Senate in February 1850.All statutes, regulations, and ordinances are subject to judicial review. They can be overturned by any state court of record if they impermissibly amend an initiative statute, are unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution or the California Constitution, or be overturned by a federal court if they are unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution.
Pursuant to common law tradition, the courts of California have developed a large body of case law through the decisions of the Supreme Court of California and the California Courts of Appeal. The state supreme court's decisions are published in official reporters known as California Reports. The decisions of the Courts of Appeal are published in the California Appellate Reports. Both official reporters are now in their fourth series.
The content of both reporters is compiled and edited by the California Reporter of Decisions. The Reporter maintains a contract with a private publisher who in turn is responsible for actually publishing and selling the official reporters. The current official publisher is LexisNexis. In addition to the official reporters, published California cases are also printed in two Thomson West unofficial reporters: the regional Pacific Reporter and the state-specific California Reporter.
All Supreme Court decisions are published, but less than 10% of Court of Appeal decisions are published. "Unpublished" decisions handed down after 1980 are generally available through the LexisNexis and Westlaw databases, but are useful only for academic researchers or as an aid in finding relevant published decisions. An unpublished decision in a criminal or civil action generally cannot be cited in any other action in any California court.
Because the state supreme court was extremely overloaded with cases during its first half-century, a few hundred minor opinions that should have been published simply were not. In response, a small group of lawyers later undertook the tedious task of plowing through the state archives to recover and compile such opinions, which were published in a separate reporter called California Unreported Cases starting in 1913. Despite the reporter's name, those decisions are also citable as precedent, since they would have been published but for the court's severely disorganized condition at the time they were issued.
The orders and decisions of the Superior Courts of California in their capacity as trial courts are never published. However, the appellate divisions of the superior courts occasionally certify opinions for publication, which appear in a "Supplement" to the California Appellate Reports.
The California Court Case Management System is the court case management and electronic court filing system intended for use by the several courts, though development has been stalled since 2012. Since then, all courts not yet on CCMS have resorted to a variety of alternative solutions.
Secondary sources
Non-binding legal precedents
Even when a prior legal decision does not create a binding precedent, the text of the court's opinion may still help lawyers and judges understand California law. Some types of prior decisions may be cited as non-binding authority in California courts, while others can only be consulted informally.The most powerful form of non-binding authority in California are the portions of appellate opinions known as dicta, in which a court discusses legal issues that it is not obligated to decide in the case before it. Dicta from the California Supreme Court is entitled to great weight, and the Court of Appeal rarely exercises its power to disregard the high court's gratuitous statements about California law.
Cases from other states are often cited in California appellate opinions, particularly when the out-of-state decisions disagree with one another. However, this occurs less in California than in smaller jurisdictions, because the state's tremendous size guarantees that most legal issues have already been decided by some prior California court.
Decisions from federal courts are also frequently cited as a source of persuasive authority about California law, even by the California Supreme Court. Although California courts have no obligation to follow federal precedents about matters of state law, they generally follow federal decisions on issues of federal law, even though they are only required to do so when an issue has been settled by the United States Supreme Court.
Unpublished decisions from California courts are also an important source of information about state law, even though they cannot be cited in future cases. Technically, the Court of Appeal is obligated to publish any opinion that materially contributes to the development of California caselaw, but this rule is not strictly followed, and the Court of Appeal often fails to publish opinions until a party submits a request to that effect.
Legal treatises
Legal treatises are one of the most important sources of secondary authority about California law. These texts are expressly recognized as a source of 'unwritten law' by California's Code of Civil Procedure.The two most influential treatises are published by The Witkin Legal Institute Summary of California Law and The Rutter Group. Both are divided into discrete volumes about specific areas of the law, and each of the volumes is authored by a panel of judges and lawyers with special expertise in the particular topic. Collectively, these volumes have been cited thousands of times in judicial opinions.