Gov. Code, § 820 · Article 3. Liability of Public Employees

Gov. Code, § 820

Verbatim from the official edition

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

(a) Except as otherwise provided by statute (including Section 820.2), a public employee is liable for injury caused by his act or omission to the same extent as a private person.

(b) The liability of a public employee established by this part (commencing with Section 814) is subject to any defenses that would be available to the public employee if he were a private person.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Added by Stats. 1963, Ch. 1681.

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=GOV&sectionNum=820.
Text hash: sha256 55ed87e3c8ececd7dcf4f9759e86907e3963276cca35981c22df393f87db227a
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

This section cites

Provisions in this library that the text above cites, as it prints each citation. A range cited as “ss. 61.13-61.16” links its first and last provisions.

Government Code

Gov. Code, § 820.2Printed as Section 820.2

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.