“California recognizes acts of God as defenses in both contract and tort actions pursuant to section 3526 of the Civil Code which provides: “No man is responsible for that which no man can control.” The Supreme Court found the definition of “acts of God” well settled as early as 1868: “The expression excludes the idea of human agency, and if it appears that a given loss has happened in any way through the intervention of man, it cannot be held to have been the act of God, but must be regarded as the act of man.” After concluding that an act of God is equivalent to an “act of the elements,” the court reasoned: ‘before an act can be considered the act of the elements it must appear that no human agency intervened, for if it did, the elements cannot be regarded as the cause, but only as the means.'”
[California Affirmative Defenses [certain citations omitted]]
