Law of obligations 

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The Law of Obligations is one of the component private law elements of the civil law system of law. The Law of Obligations finds its origins in Roman law which is defined as a “legal tie” or “legal bond” in the Institutes of Justinian. It concerned with situations where a person has incurred a personal liability for which he is answerable at law.

Contents

Introduction

The Law of Obligations is one of the branches of the civil law which includes the Contract Law and Delict Law, the Quasi-contract law, and the Quasi-delict law.

The Law of Obligations seeks to organize and regulate the voluntary and semi-voluntary legal relations available between moral and natural persons under as:

  1. obligations under contracts, both innominate and nominate (for example: sales, gift, lease, carriage, mandate, association, deposit, loan, employment, insurance, gaming and arbitration)
  2. in unjust enrichment
  3. management of the property of another (or "negotiorum gestio", the name taken from Roman Law)
  4. the reception of the thing not due
  5. the various forms of extra-contractual responsibility between persons known as delicts and quasi-delicts, which are similar to tort and negligence, respectively, at common law. Despite the relatively distinct nature of these various sources of obligations, they are considered together under a law of obligations on the basis that all are instances where a debtor has a duty to execute a certain performance towards a creditor

Sources of obligations

Contracts

A contract can be broadly defined as an agreement that is enforceable at law. Gaius classified contracts into four categories which are: consensual contracts, verbal contracts, contracts re, contracts litteris. But this classification cannot cover all the contracts, such as pacts and innominate contracts.

Quasi-contracts

Quasi-contract is one of the four categories of obligation in Justinian's classification. The man cases are negotiorum gestio (conducting of another person's affairs without their authorisation), condictio indebiti (unjust enrichment) and common ownership.

Delict

A dellict can be broadly defined as a wrongful act which causes damage, and for which the victim is entitled to compensation.

Quasi-delict

The designation comprised a group of actions of no obvious similarity, classified by Justinian as analogous to delictual obligations. It includes Res suspensae, things poured or thrown, shippers/innkeepers/stablekeepers, and erring judges.

See also

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