The California Code of Civil Procedure (commonly abbreviated to Code Civ. Proc. or just CCP) contains most California statutes that govern the filing of lawsuits, legal notices that must be given in a variety of circumstances, and many other procedural aspects of California civil law, including the statutes of limitations that control the period of time during which a lawsuit must be commenced. The CCP is one of the 29 California Codes that contain California statutes of general application.
The CCP was enacted in 1872 along with the three other original California Codes. Originally, it was the codification of the Practice Act of 1851, as amended and revised. The CCP also partially codified the law of evidence, but in 1965, the evidentiary provisions were repealed and replaced by the new California Evidence Code, which unlike the CCP, was deliberately intended to displace and supersede the common law of evidence.
The CCP, like the other codes, is frequently amended by legislation adopted by the California Legislature. Unlike most other states, California never followed the federal trend towards transferring authority over procedural law to the courts through statutes like the federal Rules Enabling Act. Instead, the California Rules of Court cover only relatively minor matters such as the formatting of court papers, while nearly all important procedural provisions continue to exist in the form of CCP sections. This means that when the Judicial Council of California identifies a major defect in California civil procedure, it cannot fix it by promulgating a new court rule, but must instead lobby the Legislature and Governor to amend the CCP.
The Practice Act of 1851 was in turn heavily influenced by the New York Code of Civil Procedure of 1850 (the Field Code), thus making California a "code pleading" state. California continues to subscribe to the "primary right" theory of pleading or "fact pleading" system traditionally followed by Field Code states, and uses the demurrer as the primary pre-answer attack on the complaint. Most states and the federal courts have switched to modern "notice pleading" and use the motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action instead of the demurrer.