Bus. & Prof. Code, § 25602 · Article 1. In General
Bus. & Prof. Code, § 25602
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Every person who sells, furnishes, gives, or causes to be sold, furnished, or given away, any alcoholic beverage to any habitual or common drunkard or to any obviously intoxicated person is guilty of a misdemeanor.
(b) No person who sells, furnishes, gives, or causes to be sold, furnished, or given away, any alcoholic beverage pursuant to subdivision (a) of this section shall be civilly liable to any injured person or the estate of such person for injuries inflicted on that person as a result of intoxication by the consumer of such alcoholic beverage.
(c) The Legislature hereby declares that this section shall be interpreted so that the holdings in cases such as Vesely v. Sager (5 Cal. 3d 153), Bernhard v. Harrah’s Club (16 Cal. 3d 313) and Coulter v. Superior Court (____ Cal. 3d ____) be abrogated in favor of prior judicial interpretation finding the consumption of alcoholic beverages rather than the serving of alcoholic beverages as the proximate cause of injuries inflicted upon another by an intoxicated person.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 1978, Ch. 929.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=BPC§ionNum=25602.
- Text hash
- sha256 f5f28b374788f7d88c336695cb929bcedda169f981dd53e653946e73c0f35095
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
Cited by 8 provisions
Provisions in this library whose text cites Bus. & Prof. Code, § 25602. Each shows the citation as that text prints it.
Business and Professions Code
- Bus. & Prof. Code, § 23363.1Printed as Section 25602
- Bus. & Prof. Code, § 23363.3Printed as Section 25602
- Bus. & Prof. Code, § 24200.8Printed as Section 25602 or 25658
- Bus. & Prof. Code, § 25602.1Printed as Section 25602
- Bus. & Prof. Code, § 25602.2Printed as Section 25602
- Bus. & Prof. Code, § 25602.3Printed as Section 25602
- Bus. & Prof. Code, § 25658.4Printed as Section 25602
- Bus. & Prof. Code, § 25686Printed as Section 25602
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.