Terms Used In California Codes > Evidence Code > Division 11 > Chapter 2 > Article 1 - Proof of the Content of a Writing

• Account: means an arrangement under a terms-of-service agreement in which the custodian carries, maintains, processes, receives, or stores a digital asset of the user or provides goods or services to the user. See California Probate Code 871
• Action: includes a civil action and a criminal action. See California Evidence Code 105
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. ^{Source: OCC}
• Catalogue of electronic communications: means information that identifies each person with which a user has had an electronic communication, the time and date of the communication, and the electronic address of the person. See California Probate Code 871
• Content of an electronic communication: means information concerning the substance or meaning of the communication, which meets all of the following requirements:

  California Probate Code 871

• Court: means the superior court presiding over the judicial proceedings which have been initiated under this code to administer the estate of the deceased user, or, if none, the superior court sitting in the exercise of jurisdiction under this code in the county of the user's domicile, and the court, as defined in this section, shall have exclusive jurisdiction over proceedings brought under this part. See California Probate Code 871
• Criminal action: includes criminal proceedings. See California Evidence Code 130
• Custodian: means a person that carries, maintains, processes, receives, or stores a digital asset of a user. See California Probate Code 871
• director: refer to the Department of General Services and the Director of General Services, respectively, unless the context otherwise requires. See California Government Code 14602
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• duplicate: is a counterpart produced by the same impression as the original, or from the same matrix, or by means of photography, including enlargements and miniatures, or by mechanical or electronic rerecording, or by chemical reproduction, or by other equivalent technique which accurately reproduces the original. See California Evidence Code 260
• Electronic: means relating to technology having electrical, digital, magnetic, wireless, optical, electromagnetic, or similar capabilities. See California Probate Code 871
• Evidence: means testimony, writings, material objects, or other things presented to the senses that are offered to prove the existence or nonexistence of a fact. See California Evidence Code 140
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Information: means data, text, images, videos, sounds, codes, computer programs, software, databases, or other items with like characteristics. See California Probate Code 871
• Instrument: means a will, a document establishing or modifying a trust, a deed, or any other writing that designates a beneficiary or makes a donative transfer of property. See California Probate Code 45
• Law: includes constitutional, statutory, and decisional law. See California Evidence Code 160
• Online tool: means an electronic service provided by a custodian that allows the user, in an agreement distinct from the terms-of-service agreement between the custodian and user, to provide directions for disclosure or nondisclosure of digital assets to a third person. See California Probate Code 871
• Original: means the writing itself or any counterpart intended to have the same effect by a person executing or issuing it. See California Evidence Code 255
• Personal representative: means an executor, administrator, special administrator, or person that performs substantially the same function under any other law. See California Probate Code 871
• Process: includes a writ or summons issued in the course of judicial proceedings of either a civil or criminal nature. See California Government Code 22
• Public entity: includes a nation, state, county, city and county, city, district, public authority, public agency, or any other political subdivision or public corporation, whether foreign or domestic. See California Evidence Code 200
• Record: means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in a perceivable form. See California Probate Code 871
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• state agency: includes every state office, officer, department, division, bureau, board, and commission. See California Government Code 11000
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• Trust: includes the following:

  California Probate Code 82

• Trustee: means a fiduciary with legal title to property under an agreement or declaration that creates a beneficial interest in another. See California Probate Code 871
• User: means a person that has an account with a custodian. See California Probate Code 871
• Will: includes a codicil, a testamentary instrument that only appoints an executor, or an instrument that revokes or revises a testamentary instrument. See California Probate Code 871
• Writing: means handwriting, typewriting, printing, photostating, photographing, photocopying, transmitting by electronic mail or facsimile, and every other means of recording upon any tangible thing, any form of communication or representation, including letters, words, pictures, sounds, or symbols, or combinations thereof, and any record thereby created, regardless of the manner in which the record has been stored. See California Evidence Code 250