Law on Obligations and Contracts Flashcards

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering basic legal definitions, sources and requisites of obligations, classifications of law, and modes/breaches of performance from the Civil Code of the Philippines.

Law (Broadest Sense)

Any rule of action or any system of uniformity.

Law (Strict Legal Sense)

A rule of conduct, just and obligatory, laid down by legitimate authority for common observance and benefit.

State Law

Law in the strict legal sense that is promulgated and enforced by the State; also known as positive law, municipal law, civil law, or imperative law.

Divine Law

The law of religion and faith, formally promulgated by God and revealed or divulged to mankind by means of direct revelation.

Natural Law

The divine inspiration in man in the sense of justice, fairness, and righteousness, derived not by divine revelation but by internal dictates of reason alone.

Moral Law

The totality of the norms of good and right conduct growing out of the collective sense of right and wrong of every community.

Physical Law

The uniformities of actions or orders of sequence which are physical phenomena sensed and felt in the operation or course of nature.

Constitution

The fundamental law, supreme law, or highest law of the land, promulgated by the people themselves, to which all other laws enacted by the legislature must conform.

Legislation

The declaration of legal rules by a competent authority (the legislature); the preponderant source of law in the Philippines.

Administrative or Executive Orders

Rules, regulations, and rulings issued by administrative officials under their quasi-legislative authority to clarify or explain the law and carry into effect its general provisions.

Jurisprudence

The decisions of the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, applying or interpreting the laws or the Constitution, forming part of the legal system.

Stare Decisis

The doctrine of precedent stating that the decisions of a superior court on a point of law are binding on all subordinate courts.

Customs

Habits and practices which, through long and uninterrupted usage, have become acknowledged and approved by society as binding rules of conduct.

Substantive Law

That portion of the body of law creating, defining, and regulating rights and duties which may be either public or private in character.

Adjective Law

That portion of the body of law prescribing the manner or procedure by which rights may be enforced or their violations redressed.

Public Law

The body of legal rules which regulates the rights and duties arising from the relationship of the state to the people.

Private Law

The body of rules which regulates the relations of individuals with one another for purely private ends.

Law on Obligations and Contracts

The body of rules which deals with the nature and sources of obligations and the rights and duties arising from agreements and particular contracts.

Obligation (Article 1156)

A juridical necessity to give, to do or not to do.

Juridical Necessity

The enforceable nature of an obligation whereby courts of justice may be called upon by the aggrieved party to enforce its fulfillment or its economic value.

Civil Obligations

Obligations which give to the creditor or obligee a right under the law to enforce their performance in courts of justice.

Natural Obligations

Obligations based not on positive law but on equity and natural law, which do not grant a right of action to enforce performance, though voluntary fulfillment cannot be recovered.

Passive Subject (Debtor or Obligor)

The person who is bound to the fulfillment of the obligation; he who has a duty.

Active Subject (Creditor or Obligee)

The person who is entitled to demand the fulfillment of the obligation; he who has a right.

Object or Prestation

The subject matter of the obligation, consisting of the conduct required to be observed by the debtor (giving, doing, or not doing).

Juridical Tie (Efficient Cause)

That which binds or connects the parties to the obligation, determined by knowing the source of the obligation.

Real Obligation

An obligation to give, in which the subject matter is a thing that the obligor must deliver to the obligee.

Personal Obligation

An obligation to do or not to do, in which the subject matter is an act to be performed or omitted.

Positive Personal Obligation

An obligation to do or to render service.

Negative Personal Obligation

An obligation not to do an act.

Contract

A meeting of minds between two persons whereby one binds himself, with respect to the other, to give something or to render some service (Art. 1305).

Quasi-Contract

A juridical relation resulting from lawful, voluntary and unilateral acts enforceable to the end that no one shall be unjustly enriched or benefited at the expense of another (Art. 2142).

Negotiorum Gestio

The voluntary management of the property or affairs of another without the knowledge or consent of the latter (Art. 2144).

Solutio Indebiti

The juridical relation created when something is received when there is no right to demand it and it was unduly delivered through mistake (Art. 2154).

Quasi-Delict (Tort)

An act or omission by a person causing damage to another through fault or negligence, where no pre-existing contractual relation exists between the parties (Art. 2176).

Specific (Determinate) Thing

A thing that is particularly designated or physically segregated from others of the same class.

Generic (Indeterminate) Thing

A thing that refers only to a class or genus to which it pertains and cannot be pointed out with particularity.

Diligence of a Good Father of a Family

Ordinary care or that diligence which an average or reasonably prudent person would exercise over his own property.

Natural Fruits

The spontaneous products of the soil, and the young and other products of animals.

Industrial Fruits

Those products produced by lands of any kind through cultivation or labor.

Civil Fruits

Income derived by virtue of a juridical relation, such as rents of buildings or prices of leases.

Personal Right

The right or power of a creditor to demand from a definite passive subject (debtor) the fulfillment of the latter's obligation to give, to do, or not to do.

Real Right

The right or interest of a person over a specific thing without a definite passive subject against whom the right may be personally enforced, directed against the whole world.

Accessions

The fruits of, or additions to, or improvements upon, the principal thing.

Accessories

Things joined to, or included with, the principal thing for the latter's embellishment, better use, or completion.

Ordinary Delay

The mere failure to perform an obligation on time.

Legal Delay (Default / Mora)

The failure to perform an obligation on time which failure constitutes a breach of the obligation.

Mora Solvendi

The delay on the part of the debtor to fulfill his obligation by reason of a cause imputable to him.

Mora Accipiendi

The delay on the part of the creditor without justifiable reason to accept the performance of the obligation.

Compensatio Morae

The delay of the obligors in reciprocal obligations, where the delay of one cancels out the delay of the other.

Fraud (Dolo)

The deliberate or intentional evasion of the normal fulfillment of an obligation.

Causal Fraud (Dolo Causante)

Fraud employed in the execution of a contract under Article 1338, which vitiates consent and makes the contract voidable.

Incidental Fraud (Dolo Incidente)

Fraud committed in the performance of an obligation already existing because of contract.

Negligence (Culpa)

Any voluntary act or omission, there being no malice, which prevents the normal fulfillment of an obligation.

Fortuitous Event

Any extraordinary event which cannot be foreseen, or which, though foreseen, is inevitable.

Presumption

The inference of a fact not actually known arising from its usual connection with another which is known or proved.