AB 1909 amends Section 24.5 of the California Vehicle Code to modernize the possessive language used in the statute that governs where and upon whom civil process and subpoenas to the Department of Motor Vehicles must be served. The amendment replaces a gendered pronoun with a gender-neutral possessive, leaving the substantive rule — service upon the director or the director’s appointed representatives at department headquarters — intact.
For practitioners, the bill does not change who may be served or the location for service; it is a drafting cleanup. Its practical significance is limited to statutory text, but it eliminates anachronistic language that could be cited in narrow statutory-construction arguments and updates the code to contemporary drafting norms.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill revises the wording of Vehicle Code §24.5, replacing a gendered possessive with the phrase "the director’s" when identifying authorized recipients of civil process and subpoenas. The requirement that service occur at the DMV’s headquarters and may be made on the director or appointed representatives remains.
Who It Affects
Directly affected parties are litigants and their counsel who serve process on the Department of Motor Vehicles, DMV administrative staff who receive service, and court clerks who record service events. Law publishers and codifiers must update statutory text in official codes and databases.
Why It Matters
This is a textual modernization rather than a reform of service rules, so it reduces the chance of technical challenges grounded in archaic phrasing and brings the statute in line with gender-neutral drafting practices. Compliance and operational procedures within the DMV remain the relevant points of practice.
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What This Bill Actually Does
AB 1909 performs a narrow textual edit to Vehicle Code Section 24.5. The bill substitutes a gender-neutral possessive for a gendered pronoun in the clause that prescribes where civil process against the director and the Department of Motor Vehicles — and subpoenas for department records — must be served.
The statute continues to state that service occurs at the department’s headquarters and may be made on the director or the director’s appointed representatives.
Because the bill does not alter who counts as an authorized recipient or where service is to be made, it does not change existing service mechanics (for example, the methods of personal service or statutory requirements for proof of service). Its practical effect will be administrative: updated statutory text in codes, online repositories, and internal DMV guidance to reflect the neutral phrasing.The legislative filing expressly characterizes the change as technical and nonsubstantive.
That label signals the Legislature’s intent that courts treat the amendment as a modernization rather than a change in legal rights or obligations. In practice, counsel should continue to follow established service protocols and confirm which DMV employees are authorized to accept process at the headquarters location to avoid any day-to-day confusion while the statutory text is updated in official sources.
The Five Things You Need to Know
AB 1909 amends Vehicle Code §24.5 to replace a gendered possessive with the phrase "the director’s.", The bill keeps the existing rule that civil process and subpoenas must be served on the director or the director’s appointed representatives.
Service must still be made at the department’s headquarters; the bill does not change venue or location requirements.
The Legislature describes the amendment as technical and nonsubstantive, indicating no intended change in legal effect.
Operational practice — who accepts service at the headquarters and how proof is filed — remains governed by existing rules and DMV procedures.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Textual substitution of possessive
This provision carries out the single textual replacement in the statute’s operative sentence: the gendered possessive is replaced with the director’s name-based possessive. Practically, this is a drafting modernization; the statutory instruction about who must be served is preserved. The printed bill shows the replaced and inserted words together as a drafting mark, but the resulting operative language will read with the neutral possessive.
No change to authorized recipients or location
The amendment leaves intact the clause requiring service upon the director or the director’s appointed representatives at department headquarters. That means existing expectations about acceptance of process by designated DMV staff and the physical point of service do not change; parties should continue to rely on current DMV points of contact and proof-of-service practices.
Characterized as technical and nonsubstantive
The bill’s digest and legislative language label the change as nonsubstantive. That designation is meaningful for interpretation: it signals legislative intent that courts treat the edit as clarifying rather than altering legal rights. Still, courts are not bound to that label; however, in practice it reduces the likelihood of successful statutory-construction challenges based solely on the wording swap.
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Who Benefits
- Department of Motor Vehicles — Reduces the risk that archaic, gendered language will invite collateral challenges to service procedures and simplifies internal communications and training materials.
- Practicing attorneys who serve process on the DMV — Lowers the chance of technical objections based on outdated pronoun usage and eliminates a trivial source of dispute in litigation against the agency.
- Courts and judges — Provides clearer statutory text when resolving disputes about service recipients, decreasing time spent parsing dated drafting conventions.
- Legislative drafters and code publishers — Aligns the statute with modern drafting standards, simplifying future amendments and editorial maintenance.
Who Bears the Cost
- State and private code publishers — Must update printed and electronic versions of the Vehicle Code and accompanying annotation databases (minor administrative cost).
- Legislative and agency staff — Will perform the mechanical work of updating internal guidance, training materials, and website text to reflect the revised phrasing.
- Process servers and court clerks — Face tiny transitional friction while official sources and templates are updated, requiring short-term attention to ensure proof-of-service forms match current statutory wording.
- No category of stakeholders faces substantive legal or financial burdens because the bill does not change substantive duties or liability.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between the value of continuous textual modernization — improving inclusivity and clarity — and the principle of legal stability: every change, however minor, consumes administrative resources and carries a small risk of altering interpretation in practice. AB 1909 favors modernization, accepting modest administrative updating to remove archaic language while relying on courts and practitioners to treat the change as non-substantive.
On its face, AB 1909 is a tidy editorial correction, but even cosmetic edits raise practical questions. First, the printed amendment shows both the removed and inserted words together (a common drafting display), which could sow momentary confusion in systems that ingest raw bill text before editorial codification.
Second, while the Legislature labels the change nonsubstantive, courts sometimes examine textual shifts for latent effects; an argument that a minor rewording altered meaning would be an uphill but not impossible route in tightly contested disputes.
Implementation requires modest coordination: the DMV should ensure its roster of authorized representatives at headquarters is current and that staff who accept service are listed in internal guidance. Law libraries, publishers, and online repositories must update citations and annotated code entries to reflect the new phrasing.
Those are administrative costs rather than legal burdens, but they are the real-world work triggered by even minimal statutory edits.
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