Law of California
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 (it had previously existed only intermittently on an ad hoc temporary basis), and it spent the next thirty years slowly codifying the rest of the California Statutes.
Pursuant to certain broadly worded statutes, state agencies have promulgated an enormous body of regulations, which are codified in the California Code of Regulations (CCR) and carry the force of law to the extent they do not conflict with any statutes or the state or federal Constitutions.
California is divided into 58 counties, including San Francisco (a consolidated city–county with the powers of both types of entities) and municipal areas incorporated as cities.
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.
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.
[9] 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.
[13] Unpublished decisions from California courts are also an important source of information about state law, even though they cannot be cited in future cases.
[8] 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.
[15] The two most influential treatises are published by The Witkin Legal Institute Summary of California Law and The Rutter Group.
The second oddity is that California is the only state that always precedes a citation to statute subsections with the word "subdivision" (abbreviated in some contexts to "subd.").
This can be problematic as even noncontroversial technical amendments may be stalled due to unrelated disputes between the Legislature and Governor.
[21] The Electronic Discovery Act had to be reintroduced in the next legislative session and was finally signed by the Governor on June 29, 2009.
[22] Unlike the majority of states, contract law is fully codified in the Civil Code (which even includes details such as a definition of consideration).
Lee Marvin,[24] Barry Bonds,[25] and Frankie Valli[26] are among the celebrities whose marital disputes were litigated before the Supreme Court of California.
The widespread distribution of Hollywood motion pictures and television shows has given millions of media consumers worldwide some degree of superficial familiarity with California law.
California appellate courts were the first in the United States to begin carving out exceptions to at-will employment, in 1959.
The California three strikes law (codified in the Penal Code) has resulted in severe penalties in some cases and has been somewhat controversial in its application.
Proposition 13, passed by California voters in 1978, created one of the strongest limits on property tax in the country.
Taxable value is defined as the most recent purchase price of the property, plus increases each year of 2% or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.
