Prob. Code, § 810 · Part 17. LEGAL MENTAL CAPACITY
Prob. Code, § 810
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
The Legislature finds and declares the following:
(a) For purposes of this part, there shall exist a rebuttable presumption affecting the burden of proof that all persons have the capacity to make decisions and to be responsible for their acts or decisions.
(b) A person who has a mental or physical disorder may still be capable of contracting, conveying, marrying, making medical decisions, executing wills or trusts, and performing other actions.
(c) A judicial determination that a person is totally without understanding, or is of unsound mind, or suffers from one or more mental deficits so substantial that, under the circumstances, the person should be deemed to lack the legal capacity to perform a specific act, should be based on evidence of a deficit in one or more of the person’s mental functions rather than on a diagnosis of a person’s mental or physical disorder.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 1998, Ch. 581, Sec. 19. Effective January 1, 1999.
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=810.
- Text hash
- sha256 211dcbf9da94fe6cc665953f266195564c6e855d4714811fb11f6b7aec1bd945
- 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
Cited by 1 provision
Provisions in this library whose text cites Prob. Code, § 810. Each shows the citation as that text prints it.
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.