Whenever in any action or special proceeding, civil or criminal, in any court of this State any record is lost, injured, or destroyed by reason of conflagration or other public calamity, any person interested therein may apply by a duly verified petition in writing to the court for an order authorizing such defect to be supplied by a duly certified copy of the original, where such copy can be obtained.
§ 1953.01.Certified copy; petition to substitute for original
Title 2. Of the Kinds and Degrees of Evidence · Chapter 3. Writings · Article 4. Records Destroyed in Fire or Calamity · Enacted 1953 · no amendments on record · Last verified July 29, 2026
In one sentenceSection 1953.01 lets an interested person, when a court record has been lost, injured, or destroyed by conflagration or other public calamity, petition the court in writing and under oath for an order allowing the missing record to be replaced with a duly certified copy, if one exists.
Full Text of § 1953.01
Plain-English Summary
This section opens the reconstruction procedure at its simplest starting point: a record has been lost, injured, or destroyed by fire or another public calamity, and someone happens to have a certified copy of the original. Anyone interested in that record, in a pending civil or criminal action or special proceeding, can petition the court in writing, under oath, asking for an order to let that certified copy fill the gap.
The section leaves the harder case, where no certified copy exists at all, for later sections to handle. Here, the fix is easy to obtain once a certified copy can be produced: get the court's order, and the copy stands in for the lost original.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can file a petition under this section?
Any person interested in a record that's been lost, injured, or destroyed by conflagration or other public calamity.
What must the petition include?
A duly verified writing asking the court for an order allowing a certified copy of the original to supply the missing record.
Does this section apply only to fire losses?
No. It covers records lost, injured, or destroyed by conflagration or any other public calamity.
What if no certified copy of the lost record exists?
Section 1953.03 provides a separate procedure for that situation, based on affidavit rather than an existing certified copy.
Amendment History
(Added by Stats.1953, c. 52, p. 712, § 14.)
Source & verification. Section text is reproduced verbatim from
the West's Annotated California Codes / Thomson Reuters. Enacted by the California Legislature.
Last verified July 29, 2026.
· Official source
Also known as: petition to replace lost court record firecertified copy of destroyed record california