THE LAW OF OBLIGATIONS

Having considered the law of property, we now move on to the other part of the law of things, namely the law of obligations. Where property law is the law of real rights, the law of obligations is the law of personal rights.

An obligation is “a legal tie which binds us to the necessity of making some performance in accordance with the laws of our state” (J.3.13pr). In other words, this is a personal right — a “tie” between two people, not affecting third parties. Thus, where (for example) two parties enter into a contract, no third party has any obligations with respect to that contract. Suppose that A agrees to sell an item of property to B. Instead of complet­ing the sale by delivering the property to B, A instead delivers it to C under a subsequent contract of sale. C becomes owner and is not affected by the previous agreement with B.

Obligations can be classified in various ways. Gaius divided them into two categories: obligations arising from contracts and obligations arising from delicts (civil wrongs). This, however, fails to take into account a number of types of obligation falling into neither category. Justinian adds to these categories two additional ones: obligations arising “as if” from a contract (quasi ex contractu) and obligations arising “as if” from a delict (quasi ex delicto). These categories take in various types of obligation arising neither from contract nor from delict, but having some feature in common with either contracts or delicts. These additional categories of obligation are con­sidered in Chapter 9. Delicts are considered in Chapter 8.