Things Legal Translators Need to Know: What’s in the Código Civil? (Part 2)

Part 2—Derecho de obligaciones

By Rebecca Jowers

A lawyer friend from the US once asked me, “Derecho de obligaciones, that’s the same as Derecho de contratos, right?” Well, although closely related, no, Derecho de obligaciones is a specific and rather extensive area of civil law, and Spanish law school students must generally complete the course on Obligaciones prior to taking Contratos or Derecho de daños (tort law). For those curious about the content, here is a rundown of some of the topics appearing in a typical Derecho de obligaciones syllabus:

Fuentes de las obligaciones (sources of obligations)

Sources of obligations include la ley (legislation), contratos (contracts), cuasicontratos (quasi-contracts; contracts implied in law), enriquecimiento injusto (unjust enrichment), delitos graves y leves (felonies and misdemeanors) and ilícitos civiles (torts).

Clasificación de las obligaciones (classification of obligations)

Spanish civilistas (civil law professors) have traditionally divided obligations into multiple classifications. Some of them are listed below with possible English renderings for information purposes. But if you feel an information overload headache coming on, skip down to the next section.

• obligación legal (legal obligation; obligation arising by operation of law; obligation imposed by law)
• obligación convencional (conventional obligation; obligation arising from an agreement of the parties)
• obligación contractual (contractual obligation; obligation arising in contract)
• obligación cuasicontractual (quasi-contractual obligation; obligation resulting from a contract implied in law)
• obligación procedente de un ilícito civil (obligation arising in tort)
• obligación procedente de un ilícito penal (obligation arising from a criminal offense)
• obligación unipersonal (single-party obligation)
• obligación pluripersonal (multi-party obligation)
• obligación parciaria (several obligation; separate obligation)
• obligación mancomunada (joint obligation)
• obligación solidaria (joint and several obligation)
• obligación unilateral (unilateral obligation; obligation in which performance is owed by only one party)
• obligación bilateral, recíproca o sinalagmática (bilateral, reciprocal or synallagmatic obligation; obligation in which each party owes performance and is both creditor and debtor of the other)
• obligación pura (unconditional obligation; obligation not subject to a condition or term)
• obligación condicional (conditional obligation; obligation subject to a condition)
• obligación a plazo o término (obligation subject to a term; obligation to be performed at a later date)
• obligación perfecta (perfect obligation; obligation fulfilling all legal requirements for enforcement)
• obligación imperfecta (imperfect obligation; obligation lacking legal requirements for enforcement)
• obligación natural (natural obligation; obligation not enforceable at law)
• obligación civil (enforceable obligation)
• obligación de dar (obligation to give or deliver specific goods or property)
• obligación de hacer (obligation to perform a given act)
• obligación de no hacer (obligation to refrain from performing a given act)
• obligación personal (strictly personal obligation; obligation performable only by the obligor; obligation of non-delegable performance)
• obligación de medios (obligation of means or diligence; best efforts obligation; best endeavors obligation)
• obligación de resultado (obligation to achieve a specific result)
• obligación pecuniaria (monetary obligation)
• obligación de intereses (obligation to pay interest)
• obligación divisible (severable obligation; obligation in which performance is severable or divisible)
• obligación indivisible (non-severable obligation; obligation in which performance is not severable or divisible)
• obligación genérica (generic obligation; obligation to deliver generic goods)
• obligación específica (specific obligation; obligation to deliver specific goods)
• obligación única, simple o singular (single performance obligation; obligation requiring a single performance or payment)
• obligación múltiple, compuesta o compleja (multiple performance obligation; obligation requiring two or more performances or payments)
• obligación conjuntiva o cumulativa (conjunctive obligation; multiple performance obligation in which the debtor must render all of the performances due)
• obligación alternativa (alternative obligation; obligation with two or more alternative performances, one of which the debtor must render)
• obligación principal (primary or principal obligation)
• obligación accesoria (ancillary obligation; secondary obligation; obligation incident to a primary obligation)

Sujetos de las obligaciones (parties to obligations)

These are obviously the acreedor or sujeto activo de la obligación (creditor or obligee; the party to whom an obligation is owed), and the deudor or sujeto pasivo de la obligación (debtor or obligor; the party owing an obligation). The deudor is also sometimes referred to as el sujeto activo del cumplimiento o de la prestación, the party owing payment or performance. Depending on the context, prestación can mean either “payment” or “performance.”

Cumplimiento de las obligaciones (performance of obligations)

Obligations may be performed directly by the debtor (pago o cumplimiento por parte del deudor), by a third party (cumplimiento por tercero), or through several alternative means. These include, among others, assignment of the debtor’s assets to the creditor (cesión de bienes del deudor al acreedor) or acceptance of an alternative performance known as dación en pago. In dación en pago (which some sources equate with the common law accord and satisfaction) the creditor accepts some type of substitute performance in full discharge of the obligation. Similarly, in dación para el pago the creditor accepts substitute performance as partial payment of the debt, without fully discharging the obligation.

Incumplimiento de las obligaciones (non-performance of obligations)

There may be cases of absolute failure of performance (incumplimiento total) or partial performance (cumplimiento parcial). Performance may be defective (cumplimiento defectuoso), untimely (cumplimiento extemporáneo) or there may be misperformance (cumplimiento inexacto). And penalties may be assessed for delayed or late performance (mora; morosidad), terms that have been rendered variously in English as default, arrears, arrearage, delinquency, delay in payment or failure to pay when due. Non-performance may likewise be deemed negligent (incumplimiento culposo), willful (incumplimiento doloso) or considered to have been rendered impossible due to force majeure events (imposibilidad de cumplimiento por fuerza mayor).

Garantía de las obligaciones y defensa del derecho de crédito (security for obligations and protection of creditor rights)

Secured debts or loans (créditos garantizados) include those secured against some type of collateral (garantía real), including a pledge, security interest or mortgage (prenda, prenda sin desplazamiento o hipoteca), or those in which personal security (garantía personal) is given, such as a guaranty (fianza propia o subsidiaria) or surety (fianza solidaria). Measures to protect creditor rights in litigation include seeking provisional remedies (medidas cautelares) such as prejudgment attachment (embargo preventivo) of the debtor’s assets or filing an action to void a conveyance in fraud of creditors (acción revocatoria por fraude a acreedores).

Extinción de obligaciones (discharge of obligations)

Obligations are generally discharged by payment or performance (cumplimiento de la obligación), but there are other means of terminating obligations. To mention only a few, obligations may likewise be discharged by mutual agreement of the parties (extinción por mutuo disenso). A supervening event may render performance impossible (imposibilidad sobrevenida de la prestación), or there may be a remission or forgiveness of the debt on the part of the creditor (condonación de la deuda). Last but not least, if the parties to the obligation are both mutually debtors and creditors, their debts may be offset against each other, i.e., there is a discharge of their obligations by setoff, known as in Spanish as compensación de deudas or extinción de las obligaciones por compensación.

(Coming in Part 3—Derecho de contratos)

About the Author

Rebecca Jowers is a Spanish-English freelance legal translator and professor of Legal English in an LL.M. program (Máster en Asesoría Jurídica de Empresas) at the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid, having previously worked as an in-house legal translator in the Elzaburu intellectual property law firm. She is the author of two reference works for translators and interpreters: Léxico temático de terminología jurídica español-inglés and Diccionario de términos y conceptos jurídicos español-ingles (Tirant lo Blanch, 2015, 2023), as well as a 300-entry blog on ES-EN legal terminology at https://rebeccajowers.com.