Obligations

Question 1

What is an obligation?

Answer 1

Legal relationship between two or more persons.

Question 2

When does an obligation exist?

Answer 2

(i) An obligor (debtor) owes a performance in favor of an obligee (creditor); and

(ii) The performance or duty is legally enforceable.

Question 3

What are the effects of obligations?

Answer 3

Obligee is entitled to legal enforcement of the obligor’s duty to perform and to recover damages if the Obligor fail to perform.

Obligor is entitled to be discharged from the obligation once performance has been rendered.

Duty of good faith on all parties.

Question 4

What is the abuse of right doctrine?

Answer 4

May be invoked to prevent an obligee from exercising a right with the primary intention of harming the obligor.

Question 5

What is a natural obligation?

Answer 5

Exists when there is a moral, but not a judicially enforceable, duty to render performance, where “the law implies a particular moral duty to render a performance.”

Question 6

What are examples of natural obligations?

Answer 6

(i) a prescribed debt,

(ii) a debt discharged in
bankruptcy,

(iii) an obligation incurred by one who lacks capacity, and (iv) dispositions in a will that is null for want of form
(which imposes on the successors of the decedent a natural obligation to execute the donations).

(iv) a stepfather’s duty to pay medical expenses
of his adult stepson [Thomas v. Bryant, 639 So. 2d 378 (La. App. 1994)], and

(v) an employee’s duty to reimburse her
employer for a bad third-party check she accepted in contravention of the employment manual

Question 7

What are the effects of natural obligations?

Answer 7

1. Not enforceable by judicial action.
2. Performance freely rendered cannot be reclaimed
3. New contract made for the peformance of a natural obligation is onerous.

Question 8

What are real rights?

Answer 8

Right in a thing good against the world.

Question 9

What is a real obligation?

Answer 9

Obligation incurred as a result of a real right.