Summary
Highlights
An obligation is defined as a juridical necessity to give, to do, or not to do, meaning it is legally enforceable in court. Obligations arise from five sources: law, contracts, quasi-contracts, delicts (crimes), and quasi-delicts (torts).
Quasi-contracts involve lawful, voluntary, and unilateral acts giving rise to obligations to prevent unjust enrichment. Examples include negotiorum gestio (unauthorized management) and solutio indebiti (payment by mistake). Delicts or crimes also create civil liability for restitution, reparation, or indemnification. Quasi-delicts or torts, arising from negligence causing damage, lead to an obligation to pay damages.
Obligations are categorized as personal (to do or not to do) or real (to give a thing). Real obligations can involve determinate things (individually identified) or generic things (indicated only by kind). The distinction is crucial for determining liability in case of loss or damage, especially regarding fortuitous events.
Before delivery, the debtor must preserve the determinate thing with the diligence of a good father of a family. For determinate things, accessories and accessions (fruits) must also be delivered. The creditor has a personal right to demand delivery of fruits before actual delivery, but a real right only after delivery.
Breach of obligation occurs with late, irregular, incomplete, or non-performance. For obligations to do or not to do, remedies include undoing poorly done or forbidden acts, or claiming damages if undoing is impossible. If the debtor refuses to perform a personal obligation, another can perform at the debtor's expense, unless the action requires specific personal qualifications, in which case only damages can be claimed due to the prohibition against involuntary servitude.
In reciprocal obligations, if one party breaches, the injured party can choose fulfillment (specific performance) or rescission (cancellation with mutual restitution), plus damages. Legal delay (default) is a breach that occurs when the creditor makes a formal demand, unless demand is excused by law, stipulation, or uselessness. Different consequences arise depending on whether the debtor, creditor, or both are in delay.
Other types include pure obligations (immediately demandable), conditional obligations (dependent on an uncertain future event, either suspensive or resolutory), and obligations with a period (dependent on a certain future event or date). The distinction between condition and period lies in the certainty of the event's occurrence. Obligations can also be alternative (debtor chooses from several prestations) or facultative (debtor can substitute one specific prestation).
In joint obligations, each debtor is liable for their share and each creditor can only demand their share. In solidary obligations, each debtor is bound to perform the entire obligation, and any creditor can demand full performance. Divisible obligations can be performed in parts, while indivisible obligations require complete performance. Obligations with a penal clause establish a penalty for non-performance to ensure compliance, serve as liquidated damages, or punish the debtor.
Obligations are extinguished primarily by payment or performance, which requires identity (delivering the exact thing/service) and integrity (complete delivery). Loss of a determinate thing without the debtor's fault and before delay also extinguishes the obligation. Condonation or remission (forgiveness of debt) also extinguishes an obligation, provided it complies with the formalities of a donation.
Confusion or merger occurs when the debtor becomes their own creditor. Compensation extinguishes obligations when two parties are both principal creditors and debtors of each other, and other conditions are met (e.g., debts are due, liquidated). Novation extinguishes an obligation by replacing it with a new one through changes in object, principal conditions, substituting the debtor, or subrogating a third person to the creditor's rights. Novation is never presumed and must be expressly stated or clearly incompatible with the old obligation.
Other ways an obligation may end include the death of a party in personal service obligations, mutual desistance, arrival of a resolutory period, fulfillment of a resolutory condition, compromise, impossibility of fulfillment, fortuitous events (subject to exceptions), prescription, rescission, and nullity of contract.