Prob. Code, § 4716 · Chapter 3. Health Care Surrogates
Prob. Code, § 4716
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) If a patient lacks the capacity to make a health care decision, the patient’s domestic partner shall have the same authority as a spouse has to make a health care decision for his or her incapacitated spouse. This section may not be construed to expand or restrict the ability of a spouse to make a health care decision for an incapacitated spouse.
(b) For the purposes of this section, the following definitions shall apply:
(1) “Capacity” has the same meaning as defined in Section 4609.
(2) “Health care” has the same meaning as defined in Section 4615.
(3) “Health care decision” has the same meaning as defined in Section 4617.
(4) “Domestic partner” has the same meaning as that term is used in Section 297 of the Family Code.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Added by Stats. 2001, Ch. 893, Sec. 49. Effective January 1, 2002.
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=PROB§ionNum=4716.
- Text hash
- sha256 e2477c932e07e44f5348e3fa9f9925ed4622b4a291cb6e22d7cf466290d608c0
- 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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