Statutory interest rate
10% / year, fixed
Applies to contract-claim judgments when the contract itself doesn't specify a rate.
California · Construction claims reference
Construction Claim Rules in California
Every figure below is the researched rule for California, with its citation and a direct link to the official source so you can confirm it yourself. Covers statutory interest and when it starts accruing, how Actual Cash Value is determined and whether labor can be depreciated, whether a “no damages for delay” clause is enforceable and how long you have to file, the state-specific inputs behind a fully burdened labor rate and who can be held liable for a construction-site injury.
Statutory Interest & Accrual in California
The rate itself and the date interest starts running, which differs by claim type in most states.
Accrual: breach of contract claim
From date of breach, if damages are certain or calculable (Civ. Code §3287(a))
If damages are 'certain, or capable of being made certain by calculation,' interest runs from the day the right to recover vested (in practice, the breach date). If a court finds the damages unliquidated instead, §3287(b) applies: interest runs only from a date the court picks in its discretion, no earlier than the date the lawsuit was filed.
Whether your damages count as 'certain/calculable' vs. unliquidated is often disputed; this is the single biggest factor in which accrual date you'll actually get.
Accrual: property damage / tort claim
From date of loss, when the damages are certain or calculable (Civ. Code §3287(a))
Same 'certain or capable of being made certain by calculation' standard as the contract rule above; §3287(a) applies to property claims generally, including against public entities, not just contract claims.
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Actual Cash Value & Property Loss in California
How ACV is determined, whether labor cost can be depreciated and the rules on releasing withheld recoverable depreciation.
Actual Cash Value rule
Replacement cost minus depreciation
For a partial loss, the cost to repair, rebuild or replace what was lost or injured, less a fair and reasonable deduction for physical depreciation based on condition at the time of loss (or the policy limit, whichever is less); depreciation may only be applied to structural components normally subject to repair/replacement over a structure's useful life.
ACV statute or regulation
California statute and regulation together define ACV and expressly prohibit depreciating labor.
Cal. Insurance Code Section 2051(b) defines ACV as the amount it would cost the insured to repair, rebuild or replace the property lost or injured, less a fair and reasonable deduction for physical depreciation. The California Department of Insurance's Fair Claims Settlement Practices Regulations further provide, at 10 C.C.R. Section 2695.9(f)(1), that except for intrinsic labor costs included in the cost of manufactured materials or goods, the expense of labor necessary to repair, rebuild or replace covered property is not a component of physical depreciation and shall not be subject to depreciation or betterment. Together these provisions bar insurers from depreciating standalone labor charges when computing ACV in California.
Recoverable depreciation holdback
California statute sets a minimum window, at least 12 months and up to 36 months during a declared emergency, for the insured to complete repairs and collect withheld replacement-cost depreciation, with mandatory good-cause extensions.
Cal. Insurance Code Section 2051.5(a)(1) requires that under a replacement cost policy, once the insured completes repair or replacement the insurer must pay the difference between the ACV payment already made and the full replacement cost, up to policy limits. Subsection (b) prohibits insurers from placing a time limit of less than 12 months, measured from the date of the first ACV payment, on the insured's right to collect this recoverable depreciation. During a state of emergency declared by the Governor covering the loss, that minimum period extends to 36 months. The statute also requires the insurer to grant an additional extension of at least six months, upon request, for good cause such as delays in construction, permitting, materials availability or contractor availability outside the insured's control.
Delay Claims in California
Whether a no-damages-for-delay clause will be enforced against you and the deadline for bringing a construction contract claim.
“No damages for delay” clause enforceability
Void by statute for public works: a delay clause can't waive damages for unreasonable, uncontemplated delay
California statute directly overrides no-damages-for-delay clauses in public-agency construction contracts and subcontracts: a provision limiting the contractor to a time extension for a delay that is unreasonable under the circumstances and not within the parties' contemplation cannot be enforced to bar damages; a public agency also can't require a contractor to waive this protection. The statute doesn't void separate notice, arbitration/dispute-procedure, or liquidated-damages provisions.
This statute covers public works contracts and subcontracts. A no-damages-for-delay clause in a private contract is judged under ordinary contract principles.
Construction contract filing deadline
4 years for a written contract claim
California's general limitations period for an action upon any contract, obligation, or liability founded upon an instrument in writing is 4 years from accrual, covering an ordinary written construction-contract claim. Separately, construction-defect claims specifically also face statutes of repose: 10 years for a latent defect and 4 years for a patent defect, both running from substantial completion rather than from accrual, but a pure delay/no-damages-for-delay claim (not a defect claim) is governed by the ordinary 4-year written-contract period. Two deadlines sit in front of that one on most construction claims. A mechanic's lien and a payment bond claim each run on their own, far shorter clock, counted from last furnishing rather than from breach and missing either one removes the security while leaving the contract claim alive but unsecured. Check those dates first. Accrual is the other half of the question: the period runs from breach, which on a payment dispute is usually the date payment came due rather than the date the work was done.
For a construction defect claim, also check the repose periods in Code Civ. Proc. §§ 337.1 (patent defects) and 337.15 (latent defects).
Labor Burden Inputs in California
The state-specific rates and requirements that sit underneath a fully burdened hourly labor cost.
State unemployment insurance (SUTA)
New-employer rate 3.4%, wage base $7,000, experience 1.5% to 6.2%
California's new-employer SUI rate is 3.4% for a new employer's first two to three years of liability, applied to the first $7,000 in wages per employee, one of the lowest taxable wage bases in the country. After the initial period, established employers are experience-rated from a minimum of 1.5% up to a maximum of 6.2%, with the state's UI Trust Fund solvency status (currently in long-term federal loan repayment) also adding surcharges in some years.
California also imposes a separate Employment Training Tax (ETT) and State Disability Insurance (SDI) on wages. Those are distinct from SUI and are not included in the figures above.
Workers' compensation rating
Independent bureau: WCIRB California (not NCCI)
California is not an NCCI state. Workers' compensation advisory pure premium rates and classification data are developed by the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California (WCIRB), an independent, private, nonprofit rating organization licensed by the California Department of Insurance. The Insurance Commissioner reviews and issues an advisory pure premium rate annually based on WCIRB's recommendation and individual insurers file their own rates relative to that benchmark.
Prevailing wage law
State prevailing-wage law, Labor Code Section 1720 et seq.
California has an extensive state prevailing wage law under Labor Code Section 1720 and following, requiring prevailing wages on public works projects, defined and enforced by the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR). Coverage thresholds vary by project type and awarding body, generally starting around $1,000 for public works generally, with related thresholds of $25,000 for construction and $15,000 for alteration, demolition, repair or maintenance work triggering additional requirements such as DIR project registration and apprenticeship obligations.
Threshold figures vary by specific fact pattern (awarding body type, funding source, contract type); confirm the precise applicable threshold against DIR guidance for the specific project before relying on a single number.
Construction Site Injury & Third-Party Liability in California
OSHA enforcement structure, how much weight an OSHA violation carries in a negligence case and whether an injured worker's own employer can be pulled back in.
Comparative / contributory negligence rule
Pure comparative fault, no bar; recovery reduced by the worker's share of fault
Recovery is reduced in proportion to the worker's share of fault, with no threshold that cuts it off. A worker 90% at fault still recovers 10% of the damages.
California is a pure comparative state by judge-made rule. Li v. Yellow Cab Co. abolished contributory negligence as a total bar and adopted comparative fault 'in its so-called PURE form under which the assessment of liability in proportion to fault proceeds in spite of the fact that the plaintiff is equally or more at fault than the defendant'. Daly v. General Motors later extended it to strict products liability, so a claim against an equipment manufacturer carries the same rule as one against the contractor.
There is no California comparative negligence statute. Civil Code § 1714 was thought to codify the all-or-nothing rule; Li held that it did not prevent the court from acting. A code section cited for the comparative rule itself is a warning sign, as in Tennessee and South Carolina.
Proposition 51 splits the award in two and it matters on a construction claim. Civil Code § 1431.2 makes each defendant jointly and severally liable for ECONOMIC damages but severally liable only for its own share of NON-ECONOMIC damages. So a general contractor found 20% at fault can be pursued for the whole of the medical bills and lost wages, but only 20% of the pain and suffering. That section has not been read in full here; what it does to the two damage categories is recorded because no single percentage can express it.
Non-economic damages cap
No general cap on non-economic damages
Most states cap non-economic damages only in medical malpractice actions, which does not reach a third-party construction claim. Economic losses, medical bills, lost wages, future earning capacity, are not capped by these statutes.
OSHA plan
Cal/OSHA: full state plan, private + public sector
California operates Cal/OSHA, a state plan approved to enforce occupational safety and health standards in place of federal OSHA, covering both private and public-sector employers. A state plan must be at least as effective as federal OSHA and may set stricter standards, so check the state rule before assuming the federal text applies. It also covers state and local government employees, which federal OSHA does not, so a public works injury is inside the state agency's jurisdiction. Citations are issued by the state agency and contested before the state's own review body rather than the federal commission, which changes where the file lives when you go looking for it. Reporting deadlines follow the federal rule: a work-related fatality within 8 hours, an inpatient hospitalisation, amputation or loss of an eye within 24 hours. For a construction claim the inspection file matters more than the citation: photographs, measurements, witness statements and the inspector's narrative are usually obtainable and are often the best contemporaneous record of the site.
Weight of an OSHA violation in a negligence case
Cal/OSHA provisions can be used to establish the standard of care in a negligence action against a private third party
In Elsner v. Uveges, the California Supreme Court held that the 1999 amendments to Labor Code section 6304.5 restored the common law rule, so Cal/OSHA provisions may be used to establish standards and duties of care in negligence actions against private third parties, including through the Evidence Code section 669 presumption of negligence. The amendments do not apply to accidents that occurred before they took effect.
Third-party contribution against the employer
California's Privette doctrine presumes a hirer delegates jobsite safety to the contractor. The exceptions are narrow: retained control that the hirer actually exercised in a way that affirmatively contributed to the injury, a concealed hazard the contractor could not have discovered, or negligently provided unsafe equipment.
Privette v. Superior Court sets the general rule. Hooker v. Department of Transportation recognizes the retained control exception and Sandoval v. Qualcomm Inc. (2021) restated it as two requirements: the hirer retained control over the manner of performance of some part of the work entrusted to the contractor and the hirer actually exercised that retained control in a way that affirmatively contributed to the injury. Sandoval found Qualcomm's power-down work outside the contracted scope, so no duty arose and it directed that the CACI 1009B jury instruction be revised. Kinsman v. Unocal Corp. covers a concealed hazard the contractor could not reasonably have discovered and Gonzalez v. Mathis (2021) confirms that a known or obvious hazard on the premises does not create hirer liability. McKown v. Wal-Mart Stores covers a hirer that negligently supplies unsafe equipment.
Injury-severity gate on contribution claims
General exclusivity under §3600, but immunity can be pierced if the employer failed to secure compensation coverage (§3706) or knowingly removed/failed to install a required power-press safety guard (§4558).
Cal. Lab. Code §3600 generally provides employer immunity; §3706 removes that immunity if the employer failed to secure compensation coverage; §4558 (the "power press" exception) allows a direct action if the employer's knowing removal of, or knowing failure to install, a point-of-operation guard proximately caused the injury. In practice exclusivity takes the direct employer off the tort table entirely, whatever the OSHA file shows. The claim runs against the other parties on the site: the general contractor, the owner, another subcontractor, an equipment manufacturer. The employer or its carrier then asserts a lien against whatever the worker recovers from those parties, so the figure the worker actually keeps is the recovery less the lien, the fee and the costs. Whether the lien is reduced for the cost of obtaining the recovery is a separate state question worth asking early, because it moves the net more than most people expect.
Distinctive state doctrine
California's Privette doctrine is a distinctive, named framework (not just a statutory-employer variant) governing when a hirer owes a duty to an independent contractor's injured employee.
Privette v. Superior Court and its progeny (Hooker, Kinsman, McKown) form a body of case law specific to California that doesn't map cleanly onto other states' statutory-employer or retained-control frameworks.
Put these California rules to work on your own numbers
ClaimDuke's calculators compute delay and extended overhead (Eichleay), fully burdened labor rates, ACV/RCV property loss, claim interest and construction-injury settlement ranges. Every calculation is free and live; a documented, citation-backed report is $19.
This page is reference information for your own verification. It is not legal advice and is not a substitute for confirming the current rule with the official source linked above or with counsel. Several states' interest rates float and reset on a schedule (monthly, quarterly or annually), so always check the live source for the figure as of today rather than relying on what is shown here. Which rule actually applies to your specific claim is itself a legal question this page cannot answer for you.