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Civ. Code, § 2078 · Article 1. Voluntary Interference with Property

Civ. Code, § 2078

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

One who officiously, and without the consent of the real or apparent owner of a thing, takes it into his possession for the purpose of rendering a service about it, must complete such service, and use ordinary care, diligence, and reasonable skill about the same. He is not entitled to any compensation for his service or expenses, except that he may deduct actual and necessary expenses incurred by him about such service from any profits which his service has caused the thing to acquire for its owner, and must account to the owner for the residue.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Enacted 1872.

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=CIV&sectionNum=2078.
Text hash
sha256 7ab46d22a68a0d26f86285e2dfc40d114b1dd62cdc415574e93d25c65841e0f5
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

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.