Week

2: Obligations and Contracts

• What is obligation?
- It is a juridical necessity to give, to do, or not to do. (Art. 1156)
Take note that this refers only to civil obligations which are enforceable in court when breached.

• What are the elements of an obligations? (APOC)

1. Active subject – obligee or creditor;
2. Passive subject – obligor or debtor;
3. Object – prestation;
4. Cause – efficient cause is the same with vinculum juris

Vinculum juris – is the efficient cause or juridical tie by virtue of which the debtor has become
bound to perform prestation.

• How is vinculum juris established?
1. By Law (i.e relation of husband and wife for support)
2. By Bilateral acts (i.e contracts)
3. By Unilateral acts (i.e crimes and quasi-delicts)

• What are the requisites of a valid object?
The object must be:
1. Licit or lawful;
2. Possible, physically and judicially;
3. Determinate or determinable; and
4. Pecuniary value or possible equivalent in money.

Note: Absence of either of the first three (a,b &c) makes the object void.


• What are the different kinds of prestation?

• What are the sources of obligations? Distinguish.











a. Law – a rule of conduct, just and obligatory, laid down by
legitimate authority for common observance and benefit.
 b. Contracts – a contract is a meeting of minds between two
persons whereby one binds himself, with respect to the other,
to give something or to render some service.

c. Quasi- contracts – they refer to certain lawful, voluntary and
unilateral acts giving rise to a juridical relation to the end that
no one shall be unjustly enriched at the expense of another.

• Negotiorum gestio – this refers to the voluntary
administration of the property, business or affairs of
another without his consent or authority. It creates the
obligation to reimburse the gestor for necessary and
useful expenses.

Example:
X and Y are the owners of adjacent vegetable farms.
One day, D was not around to tend his farm. When C
noticed that D had not been around for almost a week, he
himself cultivated the soil and placed fertilizer on it,
watered the plants, removed the weeds and wilted leaves.

Question: Is X liable for Y for all the expenses incurred
for the vegetable farm?
(Otherwise he will be unjustly enriching himself at the other’s expense)

 • Solutio indebiti – this refers to payment by mistake of an
obligation which was not due when paid. It creates the
obligation to return the payment.

Example:
D, the payee of check for P5,000, cashes it with the
drawee bank, but the teller gives him P6,000 by mistake.
D is duty bound to return the excess of P1,000 to the bank.
Otherwise, he will be unjustly enriching himself at the
bank’s expense.


d. Delicts – these are crimes or felonies. The commission of a crime
makes the offender civilly liable. (Civil and criminally liable)

e. Quasi-delicts – (also known as “tort” or culpa aquiliana) these
are acts or ommissions that cause damage to another, there
being fault or negligence but without any pre-existing
contractual relation between the parties.

Example:
If a person, while cleaning his window, causes a flowerpot to
fall through his negligence thereby injuring someone passing by,
the former is liable for damages to the latter.


 • Nature and Effect of Obligations
Determinate Thing and Generic Thing
Ø A thing is determinate when it is particularly designate or
physically segregated from all others of the same class.
Ø Why do we need to know whether a thing is determinate or
generic?
As a rule, the loss of a determinate thing through a fortuitous
event extinguishes the obligation.

A. Obligations of one obliged to give a determinate thing
o To take good care of the thing with the diligence of a good father
of a family unless the law or agreement of the parties requires
another standard of care.

o To deliver the thing – possession

o To deliver the fruits
a) Kinds of (fruits – Natural (spontaneous), Industrial (cultivation

or labor) and Civil Fruits (result of a juridical relation eg. Rent of

a building)
b) When creditor has a right to the fruits of a determinate thing –

from the time the obligation to deliver it arises. However, he

shall require no real right over it until the thing has been
delivered. (Personal and Real rights?) (one person-against the world)


 c) When obligation to deliver the thing arises

Ø if the obligation is a pure obligation or is not subject to a

suspensive period or suspensive condition, the obligation to
deliver arises from perfection.
Ø If the obligation is subject to a suspensive period or a
suspensive condition, the obligation to deliver arises upon
the arrival of the term or upon the fulfillment of the
condition.

o To deliver its accessions and accessories even if they have not been
mentioned.
Ø Accessions – they include everything that is produced by a thing or
is incorporated or attached thereto, either naturally or artificially.
Ø Accessories – those joined to or included with the principal thing
for the latter’s better use, perfection or enjoyment.