Civ. Code, § 985 · Chapter 3. Products of the Mind

Civ. Code, § 985

Verbatim from the official edition

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

Letters and other private communications in writing belong to the person to whom they are addressed and delivered; but they cannot be published against the will of the writer, except by authority of law.

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=985.
Text hash: sha256 073a5929591f1875086e0ab63e454686698ec6c8807ec343580b2fe864c46bad
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.