California Codes

Cal. Civil Code § 1565 (2026)

✓ current as of May 2026
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The consent of the parties to a contract must be:

1.Free;

2.Mutual; and,

3.Communicated by each to the other.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 91 cases (40 in the last 5 years), 1944–2026 · leading case: Harris v. TAP Worldwide, LLC, 248 Cal. App. 4th 373 (Cal. Ct. App. 2016).
Harris v. TAP Worldwide, LLC, 248 Cal. App. 4th 373 (Cal. Ct. App. 2016). “(Civ. Code, § 1565, subd. 3.) ‘Mutual assent is determined under an objective standard applied to the outward manifestations or expressions of the parties, i.”
Esparza v. Sand & Sea, Inc., 2 Cal. App. 5th 781 (Cal. Ct. App. 2016). “(Civ. Code, § 1565, subd. 3.) ‘Mutual assent is determined under an objective standard applied to the outward manifestations or expressions of the parties, i.”
Serafin v. Balco Props. Ltd., LLC, 39 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1534 (Cal. Ct. App. 2015). “(Civ. Code, § 1565, subd. 3.) “Mutual assent is determined under an objective standard applied to the outward manifestations or expressions of the parties, i.”
Toal v. Tardif, 178 Cal. App. 4th 1208 (Cal. Ct. App. 2009). “(Civ. Code, § 1565.) Thus, a party’s consent is essential to “the contractual underpinning of the arbitration procedure .”
Weddington Prods., Inc. v. Flick, 98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 218 (Cal. Ct. App. 1998). “" (Civ. Code, § 1565; 1 Witkin, Summary of Cal.”
Quantification Settlement Agreement Cases, 42 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20354 (Cal. Ct. App. 2011). “(Civ. Code, § 1565.) “Consent is not mutual, unless the parties all agree upon the same thing in the same sense.”
Rodriguez v. Oto, 212 Cal. App. 4th 1020 (Cal. Ct. App. 2013). “(Civ. Code, § 1565, subd. 2.) It is fundamental, however, that “there need not be a subjective meeting of the minds; in the absence of fraud, mistake, etc.”
Chamber of Com. of the US v. Rob Bonta, 62 F.4th 473 (9th Cir. 2023). “Contrary to the arguments made by California and the dissent, a contract may be “consensual,” as that term is used in contract law, even if one party accepts unfavorable terms due to some degree of unequal bargaining power.”
Mitri v. Arnel Mgmt. Co., 102 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 488 (Cal. Ct. App. 2007). “) Civil Code section 1565, subdivision 3 provides, “[t]he consent of the parties to a contract must be .”
Roth v. Malson, 98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 8066 (Cal. Ct. App. 1998). · cites it 2× “Procedure (4th ed. 1997) Pleading, § 476, p. 570; 5 Witkin, supra, § 741, p.”
Chamber of Com. of the US v. Rob Bonta, 13 F.4th 766 (9th Cir. 2021). “Contrary to the majority, a contract may be “consensual,” as that term is used in contract law, even if one party accepts unfavorable terms due to unequal bargaining power.”
Khajavi v. Feather River Anesthesia Med. Grp., 2000 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 8323 (Cal. Ct. App. 2000). “As a matter of contract law, a party is entitled to the benefit of only those provisions to which the contracting parties agreed, not the ones to which they might have subsequently agreed.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.