Pen. Code, § 597n · Title 14. MALICIOUS MISCHIEF
Pen. Code, § 597n
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Any person who cuts the solid part of the tail of any horse or cattle in the operation known as “docking,” or in any other operation performed for the purpose of shortening the tail of any horse or cattle, within the State of California, or procures the same to be done, or imports or brings into this state any docked horse, or horses, or drives, works, uses, races, or deals in any unregistered docked horse, or horses, within the State of California except as provided in Section 597r, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
(b) Subdivision (a) shall not apply to “docking” when the solid part of any cattle’s tail must be removed in an emergency for the purpose of saving the cattle’s life or relieving the cattle’s pain, provided that the emergency treatment is performed consistent with the Veterinary Medicine Practice Act (commencing with Section 4811) of Article 1 of Chapter 11 of Division 2 of the Business and Professions Code.
(c) For the purposes of this section, “cattle” means any animal of the bovine species.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2009, Ch. 344, Sec. 1. (SB 135) Effective January 1, 2010.
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§ionNum=597n.
- Text hash
- sha256 df32729c30b4841e683021dc54e781157dd48a19c4e9b5ab78dbe5ae8a000bb9
- 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
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Penal Code
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