Civ. Code, § 3344.5 · Article 3. Penal Damages
Civ. Code, § 3344.5
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Any person whose signature is used in violation of, and any candidate for elective office whose election or defeat is expressly advocated in any campaign advertisement that violates, subdivision (b) of Section 115.1 of the Penal Code, shall have a civil cause of action against any person committing the violation.
(b) If a mass mailing or other printed matter that violates subdivision (b) of Section 115.1 of the Penal Code expressly advocates the election or defeat of more than one candidate only a person whose signature is used and the candidate or candidates to whom the unauthorized signature directly relates shall have a civil cause of action pursuant to this section.
(c) Any person bringing a cause of action pursuant to this section may recover damages in an amount of two times the cost of the communication, but not to exceed fifty thousand dollars ($50,000), with regard to which the unauthorized signature was used.
(d) As used in this section, “signature” means either of the following:
(1) A handwritten or mechanical signature, or a copy thereof.
(2) Any representation of a person’s name, including, but not limited to, a printed or typewritten representation, that serves the same purpose as a handwritten or mechanical signature.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 1993, Ch. 334, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 1994.
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§ionNum=3344.5.
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- 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
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