Article XIX-c. Effective Date · Not amended since adoption on record · Last verified July 20, 2026
This section fixes the effective date for the Code of Civil Procedure: July 1, 1982. Subsection (a) makes that date a clean line for new cases — any case or proceeding commenced on or after July 1, 1982 is governed by the Act.
Subsection (b) handles the harder question of cases already underway. For proceedings commenced before that date and still pending on it, the Act doesn't reach back and rewrite what already happened; it applies only to those steps in the case that take place on or after July 1, 1982. That protects whatever procedural steps a pending case had already completed under prior law, while bringing the case's future course under the new Code.
This kind of effective-date provision is common when a state recodifies its procedural rules: it tells courts and litigants exactly which body of law governs a given filing date, and how to handle the transition for cases caught mid-stream.
July 1, 1982.
For cases commenced before that date and still pending on it, the Act applies only to proceedings that take place on or after July 1, 1982, not to steps already completed.
Yes, in full, under subsection (a).
To avoid disrupting procedural steps a pending case had already completed under the law in effect before July 1, 1982, while still bringing its future course under the new Code.
No. It addresses only the Act's effective date and how it applies to cases pending at the transition, not the content of any specific procedural rule.
(Source: P.A. 82-280.)