Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

it has always been. You can not open a letter addressed to another person; if they have opened the letter and left it around in the open where they reasonably should know someone might read it, it likely is not illegal to do so because they have made it a public document. But what are you doing reading other people's mail; would you want them to read your mail? An exception might be a parent who has a child who is in trouble.