Pen. Code, § 637.2 · Chapter 1.5. Invasion of Privacy

Pen. Code, § 637.2

Verbatim from the official edition

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

(a) Any person who has been injured by a violation of this chapter may bring an action against the person who committed the violation for the greater of the following amounts:

(1) Five thousand dollars ($5,000) per violation.

(2) Three times the amount of actual damages, if any, sustained by the plaintiff.

(b) Any person may, in accordance with Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 525) of Title 7 of Part 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, bring an action to enjoin and restrain any violation of this chapter, and may in the same action seek damages as provided by subdivision (a).

(c) It is not a necessary prerequisite to an action pursuant to this section that the plaintiff has suffered, or be threatened with, actual damages.

(d) This section shall not be construed to affect Title 4 (commencing with Section 3425.1) of Part 1 of Division 4 of the Civil Code.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2016, Ch. 855, Sec. 4. (AB 1671) Effective January 1, 2017.

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=637.2.
Text hash: sha256 61c79ed2d02477eea46c8fe8b27356c1e7066cbe7adb78c7b0ab245317252320
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.

Civil Code

Civ. Code, div. 4, pt. 1, tit. 4UNIFORM SINGLE PUBLICATION ACTPrinted as Title 4 (commencing with Section 3425.1) of Part 1 of Division 4 of the Civil Code

Code of Civil Procedure

Code Civ. Proc., pt. 2, tit. 7, ch. 3InjunctionPrinted as Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 525) of Title 7 of Part 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure

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.