An obligation is a legal duty, by which a person is bound to do or not to do a certain thing. Civ. Code Cel. 11427; Civ. Code Dak. 798. The binding power of a TOW, promise, oath, or contract, or of law, civil* political or moral, Independent of a promise;
More... An obligation is a legal duty, by which a person is bound to do or not to do a certain thing. Civ. Code Cel. 11427; Civ. Code Dak. 798. The binding power of a TOW, promise, oath, or contract, or of law, civil* political or moral, Independent of a promise; that which constitutes legal or moral .duty, and which renders a person liable to coercion and punishment for neglecting it. Webster. "Obligation" is the correlative of "right" Taking the latter word in its politico-ethical sense, as a power of free action lodged in a person, "obligation" is the corresponding duty, con-strainf, or binding force which should prevent all other persons from denying, abridging, or obstructing snch right, or interfering with its exercise. And the same' is its meaning as the correlative of a "jus in rem:* Taking "right" as meaning a "jus in personam," (a power, demand, claim, or privilege inherent in one person, and incident upon another,) the "obligation" is the coercive force or control imposed upon the person of incidence by the moral law and the positive law, (or the moral law as recognized and sanctioned by the positive law,) constraining; him to accede to the demand, render up the thing claimed, pay the money due, or otherwise perform what is expected of him with respect to the subject-matter of the right. In a limited and arbitrary sense, It means a penal bond or 'Vriting obligatory," that is, a bond containing a penalty, with a condition annexed for the payment of money or performance of covenants. 06. Litt. 172. Obligation is (1) legal or moral duty, as opposed to physical compulsion; (2) a duty incumbent upon an individual, or a specific and limited number of individuals, as opposed to a duty imposed upon the world at large; (3) the right to enforce such a duty, (Jos in personam,) as opposed to such a right as that of property, (jus in rem,) which avails against the world at large; (4) a bond containing a penalty, with a condition annexed, for the payment of money, performance of covenants, or the like. Mozley & Whitley. In English expositions of the Roman law, and works upon general Jurisprudence, "obligation" is used to translate the Latin "oo-iigatio" In this sense its meaning is much wider than as a technical term of English law. See'OBLIGATIO. Classification. The various sorts of obligations may be classified and defined as follows: They are either perfect or imperfect. A perfect obligation is one recognized and sanctioned by positive law: one of which the fulfillment can be enforced by tbe aid of the law. Aycock v. Martin, 37 Ga. 124, 92 Am. Dec 56 But If the duty created by the obligation operates only On the moral sense, without being enforced by any positive law, it is called an "imperfect obligation," and creates no right of action, nor has it any legal operation. The duty of exert cising gratitude, charity, and the other merely moral duties ia an example of this kind of obligation. ' Civ*. Code La. art. 1757: Edwards v. Kearaey, 96 U. S. 600, 24 L. Ed. 793. They are either natural or civil. A natural obligation is one which cannot be enforced by action, but which is binding on the party who makes it in conscience and according to natural justice. Blair v. Williams, 4 Litt. (Ky.) 41. A civil obligation is a legal tie. which gives the party with whom it is contracted the right of enforcing its performance by law. Civ. Code La. art. 1757; Poth. Obi. 173, 191. They are either express or implied; the former being those by which the obligor binds himself in express terms to perform his obligation; while the latter are such as are raised by the implication or inference of the law from the nature of the transaction. They are determinate or indeterminate; the former being the case where the thing contract* ed to be delivered is specified as an individual; the latter, where it may be any one of a particular class or species. They are divisible or indivisible, according as the obligation may or may not be lawfully broken into several distinct obligations without the consent of the obligor. They are joint or several; the former, where there are two or more obligors binding themn selves jointly for the performance of the obligsK tion; the latter, where' the obligors promise,' each for himself, to fulfill the engagement. They are personal or real; the former*/being) the case when the obligor himself is personally: liable for the performance of the engagements but does not directly bind his property; the lat-) ter, where real estate* not the person of the obr ligor, is primarily liable for performance. They are heritable or personal. The former, is the case when the heirs and assigns of one: party may enforce the. performance against the heirs of the other; the latter, when'the obligor,binds himself only, not his heirs or representatives. They are either principal or aceessorv. ? A) principal obligation is one which is the most im-v portant object of the engagement of the con* tracting parties; while an accessory obligation depends upon or is collateral to the principal. They may be either conjunctive or olterndtivei The former is one in which the several objects in it are connected by a copulative, or In any other manner which shows that all of them are; severally comprised in the contract. This, contract creates as many different obligations there are different objects; and the debtor/when he wishes to discharge himself,-may fores' the creditor to receive them separately;' < Butwhere the things which form the object of thecontract are separated by a disjunctive, tbeni the obligation is alternative. o A promise to deliver a certain thing or to pay. a specified'sum of money, is an example of this kind of obligation* >CivJ
"Code La. art. 2063; . They are either simple or conditional.^ Simple obligations are such as are not dependent for their execution, on any .event provided/for by the parties, and which are not agreed to become void on the happening of Any such event o Con-* ditlonal obligations are such as are made ter depend on an uncertain event If the obligation is not to take effect until the' event happens,' it is a suspensive condition; if the obligation takes effect immediately, but Is liable to be defeated when the event happens, It is then a res*; olutory condition. Civ. Code La. arts.. 2090. 2021; Moss v. Smoker, 2 Lei Ann. 989. ' ~
They may be ei ther single or penal ; the lattery when a penal clause is attached to the undtprtassing. to be enforced in case .the obligor falls to perform; the former, when,no such penalty is "added. ? *"
Other compound and descriptive terinf. -Moral obligation. A duty which is valid-and binding in the forum of the conscience but is not recognized by the law as adequate^ to set in motion the machinery of justice; that is, one which rests upon ethical considerations' alone, and' is not imposed or enforced* by posM tive law. Taylor v. Hotchkiss, 81 App. iDiva 470. 80 N. Y. Supp. 1042; Goulding v. Davidson, 25 How. Prac. (N. Y.) 483^ Bailey o v. Philadelphia, 167 Pa, 569, 31 Atl. 925; 46 Am, St. Rep. 691.-Obligation of a oontraet. As used in Const ,U. S. art. 1, ?10, the term means the binding and coercive force Which constrains every man to perform the agree* ments he has made; a force grounded jn the ethical principle of fidelity to one's promises, but deriving its legal efficacy from Its'*Cognition; by positive law, and sanctioned by the Jaw*8 preJ Tiding a remedy for the infraction tbe dutjt or for the . enforcement of the correlative right; See Story, Const, ft 137S; Black, Const Pro-hib. ft 139. See Ogden v. Saunders,^ Wheat: 21b 6 L. Ed. 606; Blair vi Williams; 4 IMt (Ky.) 36; Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 197, 4 L. Ed. 529: Wachter v. Fa in a ch on, 62 Wis. 117, 22 N. W. 1 GO.-Obligation soli-daire. This, in French law, corresponds to joint and several liability in English law, but is applied also to the joint and several rights of the creditors parties to the obligation.-Primary obligation. An obligation which is the principal object of the contract For example, the primary obligation of the seller is to deliver the thing sold, and to transfer the title to it. It is distinguished from the accessory or secondary obligation to pay damages for not doing so. 1 Bouv. Inst. no. 702. The words "primary" and "direct,*1 contrasted with "secondary," when spoken with reference to an obligation, refer to the remedy provided by law for enforcing the obligation, rather than to the character and limits of the obligation itself. Kilton v. Providence Tool Co., 22 R. I. 605, 48 Atl. 1039.-Principal obligation. That obligation which arises from the principal object of the engagement which has been contracted between the parties. Poth. Obi. no. 182. One to which is appended an accessory or subsidiary obligation.-Pnro obligation. One which is not suspended by any condition, whether it has been contracted without any condition, or, when thus contracted, the condition has been accomplished. Poth. Obi. no. 176.- Real obligation. In the civil law and in Louisiana. An obligation attached to immovable property, that is, real estate. Civ. Code La. 1900, art 2010.-Simple obligation. In the civil law. An obligation which does not depend for its execution upon any event provided for by the parties, or which is not agreed to become ' void on the happening of any such event. Civ. Code La. art. 2015.-Solidary obligation. In the law of Louisiana, one which binds each of the obligors for the whole debt, as distinguished from a "joint" obligation, which binds the parties each for his separate proportion of the debt. Groves v. Sentell, 153 U. S. 465, 14 Sup. Ct 898. 38 L. Ed. 785.
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