Who is family and how close are they?  These aren't questions that typically occupy the mind of a corporate lawyer.  Occasionally, however, consanguinity matters even to a corporate lawyer.  Thus, Section 308 of the California Corporations Code authorized the Superior Court to appoint a provisional director (or directors) when there is either a deadlock on the board or a deadlock among shareholders.  (I'm leaving out some details here, and perhaps they will provide fodder for a future posting.)  The Code requires that a provisional director be "an impartial person, who is neither a shareholder nor a creditor of the corporation, nor related by consanguinity or affinity within the third degree according to the common law to any other directors of the corporation or to any judge of the court by which such provisional director is appointed".

Consanguinity is literally relationship by blood.  Sanguis is the Latin word for blood and familial relations are often referred to as "blood" relations ("blood" is derived from the Old English word, blod).  Under the Probate Code, consanguinity may be lineal or collateral.  Cal. Prob. Code § 13(b) & (c).  While the Probate Code specifies how each type of consanguinity is to be determined, those provisions don't govern Section 308(c) because the Corporations Code requires that the determination be "according to the common law".   Of course, that begs the questions of what and when.  Does the statute refer to the common law of English or American courts?  Is the statute referring to the common law when the statute was enacted, when the statute became effective or when the determination was made?  See Ahistorical Bedfellows: The California Corporations Code And The Common Law.  Rather than force lawyers and courts to confront these mysteries, the legislature should perhaps jettison the common law reference in favor of a reference to the Probate Code.