English bankruptcy cannot pass to the trustee immoveable property situate in a country not subject to the British Crown. The creditors here by opposing the order of discharge may constrain the bankrupt to convey such property to the trustee, but it is doubtful whether he can by law be compelled to do so. An Insolvency in the colony of Victoria will not vest in the assignee real estate in England (u). But where land in England was settled in trust to pay the rents to S. L. for life, or until he should commit an act of bankruptcy, or some event should occur whereby the rents if settled absolutely in trust for him should be forfeited to or become vested in any other person, and there was a gift over on the happening of any such event, it was holden that on S. L. being adjudged an insolvent in New South Wales, where he was resident, the gift over took effect (v)]. [(u) Waite v. Bingley, L. R. 21 Ch. D. p. 674. A.D. 1882. (v) In re Levy's Trusts, L. R. 30 Ch. D. p. 119. As to the difficulties that may arise with regard to property and creditors in another country, see In re Oriental Inland Steam Co., L. R. 9 Ch. App. at p. 559 (per James L. J.), and Ex parte Rogers, L. R. 16 Ch. D. p. 665.] CHAPTER XL. OBLIGATION-DISCHARGE-UNDER WHAT LAW. DCCLXXX. It is proposed in this chapter to consider the questions 1. How an obligatio is discharged or becomes extinct. 2. By what Law the discharge or extinction is governed. The latter question is, of course, the one which is more properly the subject of this treatise; but the former is not an uninteresting question of general jurisprudence. DCCLXXXI. 1. And first as to the Roman Law, the basis of European jurisprudence: "Ut obligandi debitoris," Donellus says, "certi modi sunt jure constituti, ita et liberandi" (a). An obligatio ceases to be binding (tollitur) in various ways. The following are said to be discharges of an obligatio, ipso jure :— i. Actual payment of what was due—solutio (b). ii. A verbal acknowledgment in a particular form of (a) De Jure Civ. lib. xvi. ("De solutionibus et omnis generis liberationibus") cap. i. [("Quibus modis tollatur jure obligatio: ac primum de interitu et periculo rei debitæ "), 2.] This is an admirable chapter, and deserves the most careful study. "solvitur obligatio "is (b) By whatever means the obligatio ceases, the proper technical expression. Burge, vol. iii. ch. xxi. pp. 781 et seq. Rocco, lib. iii. cap. ix. pp. 347 et seq. Savigny, R. R. v. s. 248. Puchta, Pand. §§ 286-292. words that payment has, though actually it has not, been received-acceptilatio (c). iii. A similar symbolical process in the case of an obligatio contracted per æs et libram, by which the debtor became nexus. iv. Being changed into another obligatio, for which the technical term was novatio (d). v. [The union, or merging] in one person, of the relations of obligor and obligee, or of debtor and creditor, which union is termed confusio. DCCLXXXII. The following are said to be discharges of an obligatio, ope exceptionis, or per exceptionem. i. A decision of a competent court of justice, res judicata, or ex causá judicata. Indeed, strictly speaking, the obligatio, in its technical sense, ceased as soon as legal proceedings, litis contestatio, began; but the naturalis obligatio is not destroyed by the res judicata. ii. A treaty (e) or agreement known to the civil (ƒ) and canon Law (g) by the term transactio, which is species pacti. Three conditions were necessary to found this mode of extinguishing an obligation (h): a. That the transactio should be de re dubiá ac lite incertá. B. That something should be promised; y. Or something done as an equivalent for the right waived. DCCLXXXIII. The modes of discharge or extinction, (c) Dig. lib. xlvi. t. iv. ; Inst. lib. iii. t. xxix. 1, 2. (e) Called by the Germans Vergleich: see Puchta, Pandekt. § 294 : different from Compromiss, which answers to our arbitration. Ibid. § 296. (f) Dig. lib. ii. t. xv. Cod. lib. ii. t. iv. "De transactionibus." (g) Devoti Instit. Canon. lib. iii. t. xviii. "De pactis et transactionibus." (h) Cod. lib. ii. t. iv. 38. according to the English Law, vary in name, but scarcely in substance, from those of the Roman and Continental jurisprudence. For instance, the direct fulfilment of the obligation, or the payment of the debt, is of course the solutio: [the making of a new contract and the substitution thereof in the place of an original one, before any breach of the latter, may operate as a discharge of the original contract, and would answer to the novatio (i): if a lease and its immediate reversion become vested at the same time in one person in the same right, there is a union in that person of the relations of landlord and tenant, and there ensues an extinguishment of the covenants or agreements in the lease, corresponding] to the confusio (k): the Set-off answers to the compensatio (1) the Statutes of Limitation answer to the præscriptio (m). The same observations apply to the North American United States, with the exception of Louisiana, which is governed by the Roman Law. [(i) Addison on Contracts, book v. ch. iii. sect. ii. (p. 1226 of 8th edit.). The term "novation" is now not infrequently used in English law; Conquest's Case, L. R. 1 Ch. D. p. 334. Pothier, Oblig. partie iii. chap. ii. §§ 581-605; in this chapter Pothier treats also of délégation, “qui est une espèce particulière de novation."] [(k) Broom, Comment. on Common Law, book ii. ch. iv. (p. 537, edit. 1888); Woodfall, Landlord & Tenant, ch. viii. s. 4; Pothier, Oblig. §§ 641-648: "on appelle confusion, le concours de deux qualités dans un même sujet, qui se détruisent." § 641.] (1) Story, Contracts, §§ 1468-1471; Pothier, Oblig. [partie iii. chap. iv. §§ 623-640: "La compensation est l'extinction qui se fait des dettes dont deux personnes sont réciproquement débitrices l'une envers l'autre, par les créances dont elles sont créancières réciproquement l'une de l'autre."§ 623]. Massé, Droit Commercial, liv. v. tit. i. ch. v. sect. iv. nos. 2237-2329. "Compensatio est debiti et crediti inter se contributio." Dig. lib. xvi. t. ii. 1. Set-off seems to be matter of procedure, and, as such, determinable by the lex fori. Macfarlane v. Norris, 2 Best & Smith, Rep. p. 783; 31 L. J. Q. B. p. 245. [(m) Burge, vol. iii. part ii. chap. xxi. sect. vi. Addison on Contracts, book v. ch. iii. sect. iii. (p. 1248 of 8th edit.) Pothier, Oblig. § 671. Massé, Droit Comm. liv. vii. nos. 3009-2018.] DCCLXXXIV. The Civil Law required for the discharge of certain conventions, that the transactio should be effected through the medium of the Aquiliana stipulatio (mm). But these technicalities were disregarded by the Canon Law, which greatly favoured this mode of adjusting disputes. "Sed canones," Devoti says, "non laborant de istâ "nimis attenuatâ diligentiâ juris civilis, et Aquilianâ etiam "stipulatione neglectâ obligationes quoquo modo contractas "transactione omnino perimi volunt" (n). DCCLXXXV. 2. We have now to consider by what Law the validity of the discharge, or extinction, of the obligation is governed (0). 66 DCCLXXXVI. The general principle is thus enunciated by two distinguished jurists: “Ut ita," J. Voet says, se"cundum cujus loci jura implementum accipere debuit "contractus, juxta ejus etiam leges resolvatur" (q). Burgundus lays down the rule, perhaps more accurately: "Ea "verò quæ ad complementum vel executionem contractûs spectant, vel absoluto eo superveniunt, solere a statuto loci "dirigi, in quo peragenda est solutio. Rationem mutuantur a jurisconsulto, qui unumquemque vult, in eo loco con"traxisse intelligi in quo ut solveret se obligavit” (r). 66 The result of all the best authorities, juridical and judicial, is that the discharge of an obligation, in the State in which it was contracted to be discharged, is everywhere [(mm) Vide Inst. lib. iii. t. xxix. 2.] (n) Devoti, ib. s. vii. (0) Rocco, lib. iii. cap. ix. Massé, Droit Comm. num. 127 (ed. 1844), liv. ii. tit. ii. num. 612 (ed. 1874). Burge, vol. iii. ch. xxi. sect. vii. Story, Conflict of Laws, ss. 330-351 d. Bell, Comm. vol. ii. Conclusion, sect. iii. (p. 575 of 7th edit.) Westlake, chap. xiii. §§ 223–227. (q) Lib. iv. t. i. s. 29. (r) Tract. iv. n. 29, Boullenois, tome ii. p. 498, obs. 46; cited Burge, vol. iii. ch. xxi. sect. vii. p. 875. |