California Code of Civil Procedure. California
party or his or her attorney to a sheriff, in respect to the execution of process or return thereof, or to any related act or omission, is not available to discharge or excuse the sheriff from a liability for neglect or misconduct, unless it is contained in written instructions by the attorney of the party, including the signature and name of the attorney of the party, or by the party, if he or she has no attorney. Subject to subdivision (c) of Section 263, the instructions may be transmitted electronically pursuant to Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 263).
(Amended by Stats. 2010, Ch. 680, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 2011.)
262.1. A sheriff or other ministerial officer is justified in the execution of, and shall execute, all process and orders regular on their face and issued by competent authority, whatever may be the defect in the proceedings upon which they were issued.
(Added by Stats. 1951, Ch. 655.)
262.2. Except as otherwise provided, the officer executing process shall, so long as he or she retains the original process, show it to any interested person, upon request. The officer shall show the process, with all papers, or electronic copies of all papers, attached, at his or her office whenever the office is open for business.
(Amended by Stats. 2010, Ch. 680, Sec. 2. Effective January 1, 2011.)
262.3. When any process remains with the sheriff unexecuted, in whole or in part, at the time of his death, resignation of office, or at the expiration of his term of office, such process shall be executed by his successor or successors in office.
(Added by Stats. 1951, Ch. 655.)
262.4. If the sheriff sells real estate, under and by virtue of an execution or order of court, the sheriff, or his or her successors in office, shall execute and deliver to the purchaser or purchasers all deeds and conveyances required by law and necessary for the purpose, and those deeds and conveyances shall be valid in law as if they had been executed by the sheriff who made the sale. The deeds and conveyances may be recorded electronically pursuant to Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 263) if they comply with the Electronic Recording Delivery Act of 2004 (Article 6 (commencing with Section 27390) of Chapter 6 of Part 3 of Division 2 of Title 3 of the Government Code).
(Amended by Stats. 2010, Ch. 680, Sec. 3. Effective January 1, 2011.)
262.5. Service of a paper, other than process, upon the sheriff may be made by delivering it to him or to one of his deputies, or to a person in charge of the office during office hours, or, if no such person is there, by leaving it in a conspicuous place in the office.
(Added by Stats. 1951, Ch. 655.)
262.6. When the sheriff is a party to an action or proceeding, the process and orders therein, which it would otherwise be the duty of the sheriff to execute, shall be executed by the coroner of the county.
(Added by Stats. 1951, Ch. 655.)
262.7. If an action is begun against a sheriff, all process and orders may be served by any person in the manner provided in this code.
(Amended by Stats. 2014, Ch. 470, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 2015.)
262.8. Process or orders in an action or proceeding may be executed by a person residing in the county, designated by the court, or the judge thereof, and denominated an elisor, in the following cases:
(a) When the sheriff and coroner are both parties.
(b) When either of these officers is a party, and the process is against the other.
(c) When either of these officers is a party, and there is a vacancy in the office of the other, or where it appears, by affidavit, to the satisfaction of the court in which the proceeding is pending, or the judge thereof, that both of these officers are disqualified, or by reason of any bias, prejudice, or other cause would not act promptly or impartially.
(Added by Stats. 1951, Ch. 655.)
262.9. When process is delivered to an elisor, he shall execute and return it in the same manner as the sheriff is required to execute similar process.
(Added by Stats. 1951, Ch. 655.)
262.10. Whenever process is executed, or any act performed by a coroner or elisor, he shall receive a reasonable compensation, to be fixed by the court, to be paid by the plaintiff in case of the summoning of jurors to complete the panel, and by the person or party requiring the service in all other cases in private action. If rendered at the instance of the people, it shall be audited and paid as a county charge.
(Added by Stats. 1951, Ch. 655.)
262.11. In all cases where new counties have been or may hereafter be created, and executions, orders of sale upon foreclosures of mortgages, or other process affecting specific real estate have been or may hereafter be adjudged by the final judgment or decree of a court of competent jurisdiction, to be executed by the sheriff of the county in which such real estate was originally situated, such process may be executed by the sheriff of the new county in which such real estate is found to be situated, with the like effect as if he were the sheriff of the county designated in the judgment, decree, or order of sale to execute the same.
(Added by Stats. 1955, Ch. 59.)
CHAPTER 2.
Levying Officer Electronic Transactions Act
263. (a) This chapter may be cited as the Levying Officer Electronic Transactions Act.
(b) The Legislature finds and declares that modern technologies offer alternatives to paper-based systems and provide the means to create, store, retrieve, and transmit records and documents in electronic form resulting in increased efficiency, taxpayer savings, and improved public access to levying officers. It is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this act to accommodate current and future technologies based on industry standards.
(c) Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to require a court or levying officer to comply with any of its provisions unless the court and the levying officer have (1) jointly determined that both the court and the sheriff’s department have the resources and the technological capacity to do so, and (2) have mutually agreed to electronically act upon documents as provided in this chapter.
(Added by Stats. 2010, Ch. 680, Sec. 4. Effective January 1, 2011.)
263.1. As used in this chapter, the following terms have the following definitions:
(a) “Electronic mail” or “e-mail” means an electronic message that is sent to an e-mail address and transmitted between two or more telecommunications devices, computers, or electronic devices capable of receiving electronic messages through a local, regional, or global computer network, whether or not the message is converted to hard copy format after receipt, viewed upon transmission, or stored for later retrieval.
(b) “Electronic record” means a document or record created, generated, sent, communicated, received, or stored by electronic means.
(c) “Electronic signature” means an electronic sound, symbol, or process attached to, or logically associated with, an electronic record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the electronic record.
(d) “Fax” is an abbreviation for “facsimile” and refers, as indicated by the context, to a facsimile transmission or to a document so transmitted.
(e) “Fax machine” means a machine that can send and receive a facsimile transmission using industry standards and includes a fax modem connected to a computer.
(f) “Fax transmission” means the electronic transmission and reconstruction of a document that prints a duplicate of the original document at the receiving end. “Fax transmission” includes, but is not limited to, the use of a facsimile machine or the process of integrating an electronic fax software application to automate the sending and receiving of a faxed document as an electronic record, in portable data format, by e-mail or similar electronic means.
(g) “Information processing system” means an electronic system for creating, generating,