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65 Calif. L. Rev. 4 (1977)
Li v. Yellow Cab. Co.--A Belated and Inglorious Centennial of the California Civil Code

handle is hein.journals/calr65 and id is 18 raw text is: California Law Review VoL. 65 JANUARY 1977 No. 1 Ii v. Yellow Cab Co.-A Belated and Inglorious Centennial of the California Civil Code Izhak Englardt In Li v. Yellow Cab Co. the Supreme Court of California, although recognizing that section 1714 of the Civil Code codified contributory negligence, nevertheless adopted a comparative negligence system for California. Professor Englard analyzes the confrontation be- tween court and Code and concludes that Li represents the inevitable failure of the 19th-century attempt to codify the common law. The centennial of the California Civil Code in 1972 passed virtual- ly unnoticed. The utter lack of interest contrasts vividly with the intense emotions that accompanied the Code's enactment. Both the ecstatic praise and the gloomy predictions voiced in the past may surprise the modem reader. Yet the range of emotions clearly indicates that the people had a profound faith in the action of law and a genuine interest in legislation in the private law area. One cannot otherwise comprehend the contemporary panegyric on the California Code: if adopted in all the states it would save our republic from ruin and decay,' and with a perfect system of codification. . . such as Califor- nia has obtained, we might reasonably expect for the coming of that golden period yet hidden in the womb of time, when the universal law of 'Peace on Earth good will to man' shall govern . *..., Even the sincere apprehensions about codification, which according to one author drove the people to Kearneyism and a half communistic Constitution,8 t Associate Professor of Law, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel; 1975-76 Visiting Professor of Law, U.S.C. Law Center, Ben Gurion Lectureship Series. 1. Russell, California System of Codes, 2 MICH. L. 279, 294 (1893). 2. Id. at 294-95. The author ends by quoting verses of the happy poet on the period when white-robed innocence from heaven descend. But see the sobering reaction to Russell's view in Brown, Mr. Justice Brown on Codification, 28 AM. L. REv. 258 (1894). 3. Miller, Destruction of our Natural Law by Codification 8 (1882), cited in