§ 1240.010.Power Exercised to Acquire Property For Public Use; Legislative Declaration As to Public Use

Every exercise of eminent domain in California traces back to one requirement: the property must be taken for a public use. Section 1240.010 states that baseline, then adds a shortcut for how public use gets established. When the Legislature passes a statute saying eminent domain may be exercised for a particular use, purpose, object, or function, that statute itself counts as the Legislature's declaration that the use is public.

This matters because a condemnor doesn't have to reargue, case by case, whether the underlying category of activity serves the public. If a statute already authorizes eminent domain for building schools, highways, or utility lines, the public-use question for that category is settled by the statute's own existence. What remains contested through § 1240.030's separate findings and the rest of this chapter is whether the specific project and specific parcel meet the other conditions the law demands.

Section 1240.010 pairs with § 1240.020, which narrows who can invoke that public use for a given project, and with § 1240.030, which lays out the additional findings a public entity must make before taking property for a proposed project.