The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- California
- Level
- State
- Authority
- Proposed Civil Code section 1714.28 (never enacted)
- Issued
- 2020-11-30 Nov. 30, 2020
- Effective
- never (read as 2020-11-30)
- End
- 2020-11-30 (died) (read as 2020-11-30)
- In force
- Nov. 30, 2020 to Nov. 30, 2020
- Limitation types
- Other
- Addressees
- n/a (proposed: businesses with 25 or fewer employees)
- Character
- not enacted
- Collection
- Standing duties: California DUT-CA
Operative words
AB-1035 COVID-19 emergency: small businesses: immunity from civil liability. (2019-2020)... An act to add and repeal Section 1714.28 of the Civil Code, relating to civil liability, and declaring the urgency thereof, to take effect immediately.... Committee Location: Sen Judiciary... Inactive Bill - Died... 11/30/20 From Senate committee without further action.
Penalty
What it required
Nothing: California enacted no general COVID-19 liability shield for businesses. The only shield bill would have exempted a business of 25 or fewer employees from liability for a COVID-19 infection only if it had 'implemented and abided by all applicable state and local health laws, regulations, and protocols' (June 25, 2020 text, read at leginfo billTextClient and not separately saved), and it died in committee; the standard of care in California therefore remained the general duty of care and the presumption of negligence from violation of the orders and regulations (DUT-CA-013), with no safe harbor of any kind. Character as recorded: not_enacted (legislative history; no legal effect).
Retrieval noteThe Legislature's official bill-status page as displayed Sept. 28, 2026 (status 'Died'; 'Two Thirds Vote Required'; 'Urgency'). The condition clause is quoted from the June 25, 2020 amended text on the Legislature's bill-text page, read on Sept. 28, 2026 by direct retrieval and not saved as a separate exhibit; a Husch Blackwell 50-State tracker (secondary) likewise lists California among the States without a general business shield. The record is included because the absence of a shield is itself the finding for category 4, and because the Legislature's own draft used compliance with 'all applicable state and local health laws, regulations, and protocols' as the measure of a business's conduct.