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Cal. PEN § 577

This is the official text of Cal. PEN § 577, part of California’s Penal Code — defines crimes and sets criminal procedure in California.

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Official statutory text

Every person, being the master, owner or agent of any vessel, or officer or agent of any railroad, express or transportation company, or otherwise being or representing any carrier, who delivers any bill of lading, receipt or other voucher, by which it appears that any merchandise of any description has been shipped on board any vessel, or delivered to any railroad, express or transportation company or other carrier, unless the same has been so shipped or delivered, and is at the time actually under the control of such carrier or the master, owner or agent of such vessel, or of some officer or agent of that company, to be forwarded as expressed in that bill of lading, receipt or voucher, is punishable by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or both.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.