Pen. Code, § 597.2 · Title 14. MALICIOUS MISCHIEF

Pen. Code, § 597.2

Verbatim from the official edition

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

(a) It shall be the duty of an officer of an animal shelter, a humane society, or an animal regulation department of a public agency to assist in a case involving the abandonment or voluntary relinquishment of an equine by the equine’s owner. This section does not require an animal shelter, a humane society, or an animal regulation department of a public agency to take actual possession of the equine.

(b) If an animal shelter, a humane society, or an animal regulation department of a public agency sells an equine at a private or public auction or sale, it shall set the minimum bid for the sale of the equine at a price above the current slaughter price of the equine.

(c) (1) This section does not prohibit an animal shelter, a humane society, or an animal regulation department of a public agency from placing an equine through an adoption program at an adoption fee that may be set below current slaughter price.

(2) A person adopting an equine under paragraph (1) shall submit a written statement declaring that the person is adopting the equine for personal use and not for purposes of resale, resale for slaughter, or holding or transporting the equine for slaughter.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2019, Ch. 7, Sec. 20. (AB 1553) Effective January 1, 2020.

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=PEN&sectionNum=597.2.
Text hash: sha256 453a04cfae79fdf28fd30d28aa48335524f1dc1acd049b0a12c3972f9f33db0a
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.