Evid. Code, § 1523 · Article 1. Proof of the Content of a Writing
Evid. Code, § 1523
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Except as otherwise provided by statute, oral testimony is not admissible to prove the content of a writing.
(b) Oral testimony of the content of a writing is not made inadmissible by subdivision (a) if the proponent does not have possession or control of a copy of the writing and the original is lost or has been destroyed without fraudulent intent on the part of the proponent of the evidence.
(c) Oral testimony of the content of a writing is not made inadmissible by subdivision (a) if the proponent does not have possession or control of the original or a copy of the writing and either of the following conditions is satisfied:
(1) Neither the writing nor a copy of the writing was reasonably procurable by the proponent by use of the court’s process or by other available means.
(2) The writing is not closely related to the controlling issues and it would be inexpedient to require its production.
(d) Oral testimony of the content of a writing is not made inadmissible by subdivision (a) if the writing consists of numerous accounts or other writings that cannot be examined in court without great loss of time, and the evidence sought from them is only the general result of the whole.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Added by Stats. 1998, Ch. 100, Sec. 2. Effective January 1, 1999.
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=EVID§ionNum=1523.
- Text hash
- sha256 37dc6c0bc7653bcd6af09668e468b887e0fa72354411c06b307225a8a9f57dbc
- 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 1 provision
Provisions in this library whose text cites Evid. Code, § 1523. Each shows the citation as that text prints it.
Evidence Code
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.