Judicial notice is a court’s acceptance of a well-known and indisputable fact without requiring the party relying on the fact to prove it. The doctrine of judicial notice is one of common sense, and is based on the theory that where a fact is well-known in the community—or its existence is easily determined from sources that cannot be reasonably questioned—it would not be a good use of judicial time and resources to require formal proof of the fact in court. A court may take judicial notice of both facts and laws.

In California, judicial notice is governed by Sections 450 to 460 of the California Evidence Code. The code allows courts to recognize and accept certain facts that are commonly known within the territorial jurisdiction of the court or can be verified from sources of unquestionable accuracy without requiring formal presentation of evidence. This includes both 'adjudicative facts'—those facts that are not subject to reasonable dispute because they are either generally known or easily and accurately verifiable—and 'legislative facts'—those that are relevant to legal reasoning and the lawmaking process, such as information about laws, regulations, and legal precedents. California courts can also take judicial notice of municipal ordinances and county, state, and federal laws, as well as court records of the same or a different court. However, the parties involved in a case must be given an opportunity to be heard on the propriety of taking judicial notice and the tenor of the matter noticed, unless these requirements are waived by the parties.