Civil Law

A Primer on the
Civil-Law System
by
James G. Apple
Chief, Interjudicial Affairs Office
Federal Judicial Center
and
Robert P. Deyling
Judicial Fellow
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, 1994–1995
This publication has been prepared and is being published by the Federal
Judicial Center at the request of the International Judicial Relations Committee
of the Judicial Conference of the United States.
This Federal Judicial Center publication was undertaken in furtherance of the Center’s
statutory mission to conduct and stimulate research and development for the
improvement of judicial administration. The views expressed are those of the authors and
not necessarily those of the Federal Judicial Center.
Contents
Acknowledgments v
Introduction 1
Part I: The History and Development of the Civil-Law System 3
In the Beginning: “All Roads Lead to Rome” 3
Medieval Developments in Italy 6
Canon Law and the Law Merchant 9
Intellectual Developments Leading to the Codification Process 12
The Codification Processes in France and Germany 15
The French Code 15
The German Code 16
The Codes of Chile and Brazil 17
The Development of the Role of Jurists in Modern Systems 19
Part II: The Civil-Law System As It Exists and Functions in the
Modern Era 23
The Public Law–Private Law Dichotomy 23
Court Structure 24
The Legal Process 26
Civil Procedure 26
Criminal Procedure 28
Appellate Procedure 29
Legal Actors: Tradition and Transition 29
Legal Scholars 29
The Legislature 30
Judges 30
Legal Education and Lawyers 30
Transition in the Civil-Law World 31
Part III: The Common Law and a Comparison of the Civil-Law and
Common-Law Systems 33
Origins of the Common-Law System 33
Jurists in the Common-Law System 34
Differences in the Two Systems 35
Conclusion 38
Bibliography 41
iii
Appendix A: Excerpts from the Institutes of Gaius 43
Appendix B: Excerpts from the French Code 47
Appendix C: Excerpts from the German Code 55
Appendix D: Comparison of a Similar Issue of Law Treated by a French Court
and a German Court 63
iv A Primer on the Civil-Law System

Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the contributions of several seminal works on the

civil-law system and legal history that contributed to the preparation of this
treatise. Much of the factual material and some of the opinions and general-
izations about the development of the law in Europe were drawn from An
Introduction to European Legal History by Olivia F. Robinson, Thomas D.
Fergus, and William M. Gordon of the Department of Legal History at the
University of Glasgow, and from John P. Dawson’s Oracles of the Law. Much
of the material describing the modern structure and functions of the civil-law
system was derived from The Civil Law Tradition by John H. Merryman of
Stanford University and from Comparative Legal Traditions by Mary A.
Glendon, Michael W. Gordon, and Christopher Osakwe. Other valuable sources
were Comparative Law: Western European and Latin American Legal Systems,
by John H. Merryman and David S. Clark; and The Civil Law System, by Arthur
T. von Mehren and James R. Gordley. Addi tional publications consulted by the
authors in the course of the preparation of this manuscript appear in the
bibliography. The authors are indebted to all of these scholars.
v
Introduction
Civil law is the dominant legal tradition today in most of Europe, all of Central
and South America, parts of Asia and Africa, and even some discrete areas of
the common-law world (e.g., Louisiana, Quebec, and Puerto Rico). Public
international law and the law of the European Community are in large part the
product of persons trained in the civil-law tradition. Civil law is older, more
widely distributed, and in many ways more influential than the common law.
Despite the prominence of the civil-law tradition, judges and lawyers trained
in the common-law tradition tend to know little about either the history or
present-day operation of the civil law. Beyond the most basic generalities—e.g.,
the common law follows an “adversarial” model while civil law is more
“inquisitorial,” civil law is “code-based,” civil-law judges do not interpret the
law but instead follow predetermined legal rules—judges and lawyers from the
United States seldom have any deeper sense of the civil-law tradition.
This overview is designed for judges and lawyers who seek to expand their
knowledge of the civil-law tradition and who might wish to consider the civil-
law system as a source of legal reforms. The scope of this paper is necessarily
limited. Each civil-law country has developed its own distinct legal system that
draws on the rich history of the civil law, and it is not possible to discuss here
such variations in detail. Moreover, this discussion does not attempt, except in a
most general way, to deal with the substantive law of the civil-law systems,
which can differ markedly between individual countries and also from that of
common-law countries. Instead, it focuses on general features that distinguish
the civil-law tradition from the common-law tradition. Particular references are
made to the civil-law systems of France and Germany and to two systems in
Latin America, those of Chile and Brazil, because of their strong influence on
many other systems. Those who desire more comprehensive information should
consult the sources contained in the bibliography.
Understanding modern civil law requires an understanding of the history of
the civil law beginning with the Roman Empire. Therefore, the first section of
this treatise discusses civil-law history in some depth. It focuses on Roman law,
the adaptation of Roman law during the medieval period, the development of
canon law and the law merchant, and the history of codification in Europe. The
second section reviews the basic features of the modern-day civil-law tradition,
including a summary of the structure of the courts and the adjudication process,
as well as the roles of judges, lawyers, and scholars. Finally, the commentary
1
concludes with a discussion contrasting the civil-law and common-law
traditions.
2 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

Part I:
The History and Development of the
Civil-Law System
In the Beginning: “All Roads Lead to Rome”

To understand the different civil-law systems as they exist today in European
and Latin American countries and elsewhere, one must necessarily begin in
antiquity, because the civil law, in all of its variations, has as its bedrock the
written law and legal institutions of Rome. Its very name derives from the jus
civile, the civil law of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.
Jurists—those persons “learned in the law,” or who could be described as
legal experts—made fundamental contributions to the development of the
Roman legal system.
The civil-law system had its origins in the Roman Republic, before the
beginning of the Empire, in the second century B.C. By the end of the Republic,
in 27 B.C., a body of legal experts, or jurists, had gained prominence within the
legal system, separate and apart from the courts of law (the term jurist will be
used throughout this discussion to mean a “legal expert” rather than only a
judge). These jurists were men from the upper classes of Roman society,
interested in the law and in providing counsel about the law as a public service.
They provided advice to parties to litigation, to the lay judiciary who presided at
trials and judged the facts of a case, and to legal magistrates who instructed the
lay judges on issues, procedures, and remedies available in particular cases.
Roman jurists were largely a product of the success of the Roman Empire.
Expansion of the Empire led to increased trade with conquered territories and
with distant lands with which Rome came into contact. The acquisition of
territories brought new people into Rome and other cities of the Empire. These
persons did not come under the traditional jus civile applicable to Roman
citizens, but were nevertheless important to the continued success of the Empire.
Such developments created the need for a private law regime to determine and
guide relationships between citizens and noncitizens. In this atmosphere, and to
meet such needs, the Roman jurist came into being and created for himself a
unique role, primarily in the classical period from 150 B.C. to 250 A.D.
Another reason for the development of the Roman jurist related to the nature
of the Roman judicial system and its method of disposition of cases. There were
3
two types of civil judges: the magistrate, or praetor, and the judge for the trial,
or judex. This judiciary was nonprofessional. The praetors and judices seldom
had any legal training.
The judicial capacity of the praetor, elected for a one-year term, was limited
because his duties consisted of conducting what a modern lawyer would call a
pretrial hearing between prospective litigants to define the issues of the
controversy. The praetor’s source of power was the control of the remedies
available to the litigants. The praetors’ edicts, which were pronouncements
about the law, became a primary source of private law, legislation being only a
secondary source.
The judex, on the other hand, filled the traditional role of judge during the
trial. His appointment was even more limited than that of the praetor. The judex
was selected on a strictly ad hoc basis by the litigants for the purpose of
presiding over their trial, and then given authority by the praetor to decide only
that case. Both praetors and judices needed competent legal advice. They turned
to the jurists for that counsel.
Jurists in Rome were not government officers in the modern sense of that
phrase, since they had no official powers. Rather, their activities constituted a
form of public service, the rewards of which were influence and popularity.
They did not take charge of cases or control the course of litigation through the
courts. They did not charge for their services and they received no pay from the
state, a situation that emphasized the pure public nature of their service. They
were, perhaps, the first pro bono lawyers.
In addition to giving advice in individual cases, the jurists assisted the chief
praetor (known simply as the Praetor) in drafting the Edict, an annual public
proclamation made by the Praetor to state the principles by which he intended to
administer his office. The Edict became particularly important for the
development of the equity law of Rome, the jus gentium, which applied to those
persons who could not be classified as indigenous Romans.
Jurists responded to specific questions of law in a document known as a
responsa. The responsa was prepared for both praetors and judices, frequently
using the device of the interpretatio, in which specific statutory phrases served
as the basis for an opinion.
The jurists thus fulfilled two functions as legal advisers. First, they provided
written technical advice to judges and others about the state of the law and
interpretation of textual material, such as from the Twelve Tables (an early
statement of existing law, circa 450 B.C.) or the Edict. Second, they were almost
solely responsible, through their responsa, for the development of a
comprehensive jurisprudence, independent of judicial decisions, to meet the
continuing and changing demands of an increasingly pluralistic society.
The short-term, nonprofessional character of the Roman judiciary and its
method of case disposal produced another result, important for the later de-

velopment of civil-law systems: the lack of regard for the value of decisions in
individual cases. Since the praetor was appointed for only one year and played a
limited role in the resolution of cases, his decisions and rulings in particular
cases were not accorded any particular weight or significance. Likewise, there
was little respect accorded the decisions of the judex. The judex was appointed
to decide only a particular case. The practice of having, in effect, two judges in
every case, with the judex selected only for the particular case, represented a
split in the judicial process. There was no continuity in litigation, and no chance
for the development of legal principles among the various cases presented for
resolution. A judicial decision—involving actions by two separate judicial
officials—resolved an individual case, and that was the end of the matter.
Thus judicial decisions were never accorded any importance in the Roman
legal system. The eminent Roman jurist Gaius (see infra page 6) didn’t
recognize judicial decisions as a basis of Roman law in the preamble to his
Institutes, written in the second century A.D. And in the sixth century the
Emperor Justinian drove the final nail in the coffin of Roman judicial precedent
(and judicial precedent in later systems as well) in the encyclopedic work
commissioned by him, the Corpus Juris Civilis, with the dictum “non exemplis
sed legibus judicandum est” (“decisions should be rendered in accordance, not
with examples, but with the law”).1 The resulting derogation of the value of
individual decisions in the judicial process elevated the importance of the jurists
and their written opinions. The role of jurists came to be preeminent in classical
Rome, to such an extent that it could be validly argued that the Roman private
law system was entirely dependent on them.
The practice of the Praetor in issuing the annual Edict at the beginning of his
one-year term evolved into merely a reissuance of the one for the previous office
holder, with such changes and additions as were desired by the newly elected
Praetor. The result was an ever-lengthening document of uneven texture and
content. This practice ended during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian (117–138
A.D.), causing the jurists to turn to a new form of legal writing: the treatise,
which covered specific aspects of Roman law.
Another practice that helped elevate the role of jurists was Caesar Augustus’s
practice of “patenting” jurists, by which certain jurists were singled out for
recognition. By such recognition the opinions of the patented jurists were
accorded special significance and weight. Patented jurists eventually acquired
the power of rule making, and their opinions were binding even on the emperor
because they had the “force of law.” The prestige and importance of the work of
1. John P. Dawson, Oracles of the Law 103, 123 (1968); see The Institutes of Gaius, Book One,
para. 2 (William M. Gordon & Olivia F. Robinson trans., 1988); Great Jurists of the World at xxvii
(MacDonnell & Manson eds., 1968).
The History and Development of the Civil-Law System 5

these Roman jurists became so great that they assumed the role of imperial
advisers.
Roman law—particularly the written works of these later jurists—had an
important influence on history. The written law of Rome had evolved from
responsa to the legal treatises prepared by the jurists, or jurisconsults, as they
came to be called. The law underwent further evolution in later periods of the
Empire, culminating in a comprehensive statement of private law prepared by
the jurist Gaius in the latter half of the second century A.D. Gaius’s Institutes
were an extensive collection of legal principles and rules covering matters
ranging from the rights of citizenship and the manumission of slaves to the
preservation of estates and the rules of intestate succession. The Institutes could
be analogized to modern “hornbooks,” in that they were elementary discussions
of Roman law designed to educate students, as well as assist practitioners in the
resolution of issues in a particular case. An excerpt from the Institutes is
reproduced in Appendix A.
In the sixth century, the Emperor Justinian ordered the preparation of an
even more comprehensive manuscript covering all aspects of Roman law. The
Corpus Juris Civilis included not only a refinement of Gaius’s Institutes, but the
Digest (writings of classical jurists), the Code (early imperial legislation), and
the Novels (Justinian’s legislation). The Corpus Juris Civilis provided a rich
store of legal ideas for contemporary and later students and scholars of the law.
It brought together legal treatises and principles of law reflecting diverse
viewpoints and arguments. As will be seen later in this discussion, the Corpus
Juris Civilis, particularly the refined Institutes, became the essential building
block for the system of law known popularly as the civil-law system, supplying
many of its substantive provisions.
Medieval Developments in Italy

From the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, northern Italy witnessed the rise of a
jurist class almost as prominent and significant as its Roman predecessor.
During this time the Italian peninsula experienced the rise of Italian city-states
and increased commerce and trade between them. These changes were in some
ways similar to the changes that occurred in Rome during the classical period.
They created the necessity for some system of law to fulfill both the commercial
and social needs of the populace. The legal system had to expand beyond local
custom and those vestiges of Roman imperial law that were part of whatever
local legal system existed. As in Rome, jurists came into being to fill this void;
they are now known as the “glossators of Bologna.”
Glossators and their work were significantly different from their earlier
Roman counterparts. The purpose of the glossators was not to develop new
principles, rules, and procedures to meet the challenges of their particular age, as

had occurred during the early stages of the Roman Empire. Instead, glossators
revived the Corpus Juris Civilis as a complete system of private law brought
intact from the final period of the Empire and adapted the Roman system to the
exigencies of medieval Italy. Rather than create law as the Roman jurists did,
the glossators interpreted textual material from the Corpus Juris Civilis and
disseminated those interpretations to other scholars, law students, and lay
judges.
A second difference, important to the development of the civil-law system,
was the nature of the jurists themselves. In Rome, jurists were private, upper-
class citizens performing a public service without pay. In medieval Italy they
were primarily teachers, members of the law faculties of the universities, drawn
not from the nobility but from the general public. They generally carried the title
of doctor. These legal scholars became the midwives in the birth of a new
system of law for an emerging Europe.
While the basis for the opinions of early Roman jurists is not readily apparent
from their works, it is clear that they were case oriented and not dedicated to
building a system of law. In contrast, the Italian glossators emphasized system
building and logical form, with Corpus Juris Civilis serving as the basis for
construction of legal doctrine. Their basic technique was the “gloss,” an
interpretation or addition to the text of the Corpus Juris Civilis, first made
between the lines and later in the margins. They also used some of the substance
and argumentative techniques of medieval theology. When the Corpus Juris
Civilis and theological doctrine could not supply them with the necessary
rationale for their opinions, they turned to local custom to fill the void and
incorporated it into the system. The reliance on custom was a significant
contribution of these jurists, since there is little evidence that Roman jurists
appreciated custom as a source of law or took local custom into consideration
when preparing their responsa. Significantly, Gaius made no mention of custom
in Book One of his Institutes when he listed the bases of Roman law.
In some respects, however, there is a close resemblance between the Italian
glossators and Roman jurists. Both provided much-needed advice to the
untrained lay judges of the day, especially on difficult questions of law. The
glossators developed the practice of preparing short legal treatises (summae),
which had at least a superficial resemblance to the responsa of Roman jurists.
They also engaged in their activities as “law finders” or “law givers” without
any specific grant of political or civil authority (and possibly without
remuneration since they were paid members of the law faculties). In addition,
the glossators’ summae evolved into complete statements of private law, similar
to some of the work of the late-period Roman jurists. The “Great Gloss” of the
leading glossator of the period, Accursius, who wrote his classic of medieval
legal literature from 1220 to 1260, can be compared to the Institutes of Gaius
and even Justinian’s Corpus Juris C i v i l i s as an attempt to create a

comprehensive statement of the law. The Accursian Gloss totaled over 96,000
commentaries to the entire text of the Corpus Juris Civilis. Finally, the medieval
Italian glossators, like the Roman jurists, acquired great prestige and
contemporary influence.
The abiding influence of the Italian glossators and those who followed—the
so-called post-glossators and commentators who further developed and refined
legal doctrine under the Corpus Juris Civilis—cannot be underestimated. By the
middle of the thirteenth century they had not only created law faculties in the
universities, but also developed a systematic method of teaching law and a
definitive textbook for instruction. They not only paved the way for the
reception of Roman law into modern Italy, they were the primary cause for its
reception into the modern legal systems in Germany, France, Spain,
Switzerland, and other European countries.
The glossators were particularly influential because they were law professors
associated with the great universities of medieval Italy, which were the first true
universities of Europe and had the first law faculties. The universities employed
the glossators as masters who educated students from many parts of Europe. The
original glossators were located at the University of Bologna, where the first law
school was established. A city of great influence in the medieval world, Bologna
was not only a major commercial city in Italy, but was also located at the
crossroads of major trade routes. Graduates carried the system of the glossators
to their home countries and influenced the development of local legal systems.
The influence of the Italian law faculties was especially strong in Spain.
Spanish law students attended the University of Bologna in the early part of the
twelfth century, and a university in Salamanca, Spain, was later established
under the influence of the one in Palencia, Italy. By 1346 the influx of students
from Spain was so great at Bologna that a Spanish college was set up within the
university.
The reception of Roman law into Spain, primarily law from the Corpus Juris
Civilis as refined by the Italian glossators and carried home by Spanish law
students and scholars, resulted in the preparation of a comprehensive Spanish
digest, the Codigo de Las Siete Partidas (The Code of the Seven Parts of the
Law). The digest, which used Roman law as its primary source, was prepared by
the monarch Alfonso the Learned in the latter part of the thirteenth century. This
monumental work was the foundation of Spanish private law until 1889, almost
500 years later, when it was replaced by a code that is still in force, the Codigo
Civil (Civil Code). The Codigo de Las Siete Partidas is of particular importance
to the legal systems of Central and South America. It served as the basis for the
reception of Roman law into those regions through the exploits of the Spanish
conquistadors and the colonization efforts that followed them.

Canon Law and the Law Merchant
Italian law, which influenced the development of law in other European
countries, was derived from two sources: Roman law as incorporated in Jus-
tinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis, and customary (local) law. Two developments
occurred in the medieval period that greatly affected the content of the
substantive law of the civil-law systems: (1) the creation of a comprehensive
canon or ecclesiastical law by the Roman Catholic Church, and (2) the maturing
of a law merchant, or law covering commercial transactions, as the result of the
growth of commercial classes and expansion of commercial activities in
European cities and regions.
Throughout Europe, from the twelfth through the sixteenth century, a series
of ecclesiastical courts evolved within the Roman church. These courts had a
relatively uniform structure, systematic management, and an educated staff of
judges trained and skilled in applying a canon law that was primarily concerned
with the administration of the church and its rules. This canon law had been
developing since the eleventh century, when the Bishop of Worms (Germany)
collected scattered rules and regulations of the church into a series of twenty
books known as his Decretum. From 1130 to 1150, an Italian ecclesiastical
jurist, Gratian, along with others produced the Concordia Discordantium
Canonum, a monumental work that became the basis for almost all canon law.
This extensive tract was divided into three parts, anteceding the divisions of
some of the early legal codes of European states in the post-medieval period: (1)
the nature and sources of law and ecclesiastical offices and conduct; (2) clerical
behavior, penal law and procedure, church property, religious orders, marriage,
and penance; and (3) sacraments and church doctrine.
Because of the pervasive influence of the church in almost all aspects of
medieval European life, the influence of canon law was significant. Like its
secular counterpart of the period, canon law was characterized by systematic
expositions of the law and scholarly writings about it that formed the bases for
the decisions of the ecclesiastical courts and guidance for church officials.
Reliance on scholarly collections of rules and principles of law became a norm
for developing legal systems in Europe.
The procedures used in the ecclesiastical courts also had an influence on the
secular courts of medieval Europe. Feudal courts often preferred trial by battle
or ordeal. Ecclesiastical courts developed a reasoned system that involved the
reception and consideration of documentary evidence and witness testimony, use
of qualified notaries to record proceedings, legal arguments by parties to a case
on points of law, and decisions by canonical judges. By embracing such
procedures the church made a significant contribution to the role of orderly and
systematic methods for the conduct of court proceedings and dispute resolution.

The development in medieval Europe of the law merchant resulted from
commercial developments on the Italian peninsula and in other parts of Europe.
These developments included (1) the creation and expansion of commercial
relations between Italian city-states and between the city-states and other urban
centers outside Italy; (2) the growth in maritime commercial activities and the
necessity for rules and regulations to govern that commerce; (3) the rise in the
number of fairs and markets throughout Europe and the need to regulate
commercial transactions in such settings; and (4) the rise of associations of
merchants in commercial centers created for purposes of safety of goods in
transit, financial security, and speedy resolution of commercial disputes.
The organization of merchants, seafarers, craftsmen, and traders into as-
sociations and guilds formed a community of institutions that followed local
custom and practice, which in turn provided substance for the body of
commercial law that followed. The law merchant also had a Roman law el-
ement, because Roman private law had addressed such commercial matters as
negotiable instruments and contracts. However, there were significant variations
among the commercial laws of different cities and regions. Uniformity of rules
throughout Europe was distinctly not a characteristic of the law merchant.
Because of the ease and relatively inexpensive nature of transport by sea
(compared to that by land) and the consequent increase in its frequency during
the economic revival on the Italian peninsula in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, the practice of codifying the rules, practices, and customs of sea
transport became common. Capitulare navium (Shipping Rules) were first
published in Venice in 1205 and republished in expanded form as the Statuta et
Ordinamenta super Navibus (Statutes and Regulations on Shipping) in 1255.
This group of rules and regulations became the maritime code preferred for ports
in the Adriatic Sea. In the Kingdom of Naples, the preparation of a maritime
code, ultimately consisting of sixty-six chapters in both Latin and Italian, began
in the thirteenth century.
A vast assortment of important customs relating to commercial practices for
sea transport developed in the Italian cities of Genoa and Pisa, two important
commercial centers of the medieval world. These customs greatly influenced the
compilation of the most important maritime code of the period, the Consolato
Del Mare (Consulate of the Sea). Compiled in Barcelona, Spain, and containing
over 330 articles, the Consolato Del Mare covered such maritime matters as
construction of vessels, circumstances requiring assistance to other vessels in
distress, general average (a maritime principle for allocating damages),
employment of pilots, and privateering. One article, for example, established the
legal requirement of a ship to carry a cat to deal with the rats on board. This
influential code was translated from the original Catalan (an early western
Mediterranean language) into Latin, French, and Italian and was circulated in
the early sixteenth century throughout Europe.

On land as on sea, increased intercity commerce and trade led to the creation
of rules to deal with trade practices and disputes. The land version of the law
merchant, based on the customary practices of traders, had its origin in the
markets and fairs held on a comparatively regular basis throughout Europe even
before the beginning of the second millennium. Markets were local events held
weekly or monthly during the year, while fairs were more regional in nature and
held once a year. Extant accounts describe fairs as early as the eighth and ninth
centuries in France.
The frequency and extent of markets and fairs required some mechanism for
keeping the peace and for dispute resolution. Informal courts for these events
were created to fulfill that need. In England these courts were known as
“piepowder courts,” the description being a reference to the feet of peddlers and
traders, dusty from their travels from fair to fair.2 Because the right to conduct a
market or fair arose from a grant of authority from a king or prince, the
piepowder and similar courts elsewhere in Europe evolved into official
commercial courts operating under the authority of the reigning monarch.
Another social phenomena of the era giving impetus to the legal regulation of
commerce was the creation and authority of craft guilds within a city or region
to regulate and control a particular trade. Municipal commercial courts emerged
to handle mercantile cases. The power of the guilds to regulate commerce within
a particular craft often resulted in the adoption of municipal statutes governing
organization, internal policies, and commercial practices of a particular craft.
These municipal statutes were usually based on the customs of the craft guilds
that had been periodically recorded, and they became a source of local
commercial law.
Other than the municipal statutes designed to serve guilds and guild
members, extensive codification of commercial rules, practices, and custom does
not seem to have been a practice of the land version of the law merchant, in
contrast to the maritime version. Use of precedent may have been a more
common feature of land-based transactions. In Frankfurt, Germany, a book of
precedents was maintained to assist in the arbitration and resolution of
commercial disputes.
The establishment of special commercial courts to deal with trade disputes
and trade matters—both in the cities for the benefit of guilds and at markets and
fairs—paved the way for the modern practice in some European countries of
separating commercial law and procedure from other parts of the law.
Commercial law and procedure were assigned to a special commercial code, and
special commercial courts were created to administer the commercial law.
2. Olivia F. Robinson et al., An Introduction to European Legal History 166 (1985). The term
“piepowder” is an English derivative of the French phrase “pied poudres” (dusty feet).

Thus the main river of substantive law that developed in medieval Europe
and became the basis of modern European law was the result of the convergence
of four different streams or tributaries of law. The main tributary was Roman
law, primarily contained in Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis, as modified and
elaborated by the glossators and commentators in the Italian universities. The
other tributaries were customary (local) law, canon law, and the law merchant.
Together they came to be known as the jus commune (or “common
law”—different from the common law of England), common to a whole
kingdom and the peoples within it. The jus commune as it was established in
France, Spain, and other European monarchies was characterized by both
continuity and similarity of attitudes about the law (e.g., a bias in favor of
systems and codification).
Intellectual Developments Leading to the

Codification Process
The practice of relying on various written forms of law, including scholarly
commentaries, doctrinal treatises, and glosses on compilations of legal prin-
ciples, for the creation of a legal system was well established throughout Europe
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The formal, comprehensive codification
of an entire body of law of the type characteristic of modern civil-law systems
began primarily in France and Germany. Before discussing the codification
process, however, it is necessary to examine briefly the influence of three
intellectual movements of the period: “humanism,” which grew out of the
Renaissance; the “natural law” school, which followed humanism; and finally,
the Enlightenment.
Humanism was an intellectual movement that had its origins in sixteenth
century France, a time and place of great upheaval. There was a ferment of
ideas, politics, culture, religion, and commerce. In politics and religion the
decline in the secular influence of the Roman Catholic Church and the waning of
the power and authority of the Holy Roman Empire were accompanied by the
birth of the concept of the nation-state and an emphasis on strong, central
governments. These developments culminated in the creation of the modern
European system of states by the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648,
which ended the Thirty Years War and, with it, the Holy Roman Empire. With
its emphasis on rational thought and the potential for individual achievement,
humanism was inspired by the culture of antiquity—primarily Greece, and to a
lesser extent Rome. It encouraged scholarly examination of law, particularly the
nature and function of law, and in the process the science of jurisprudence was
founded. The school of natural law was an outgrowth of humanism.
The origins of natural law are several, but the writings of Hugo de Groot
(better known as Grotius) stand out as the real starting point in the development

of the natural law school. Although Grotius (1583–1645), a Dutchman, is better
known as the father of public international law, he attempted, through several
seminal writings, especially De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the Law of War and
Peace), to develop universal concepts of law that transcended national
boundaries and were not dependent on any one legal system. He advocated ideas
such as law being based on human experiences and desires, particularly the
desire for an orderly and peaceful society and the maintenance of that society
based on reason. He argued for a rational approach to the structure of law and
the resolution of disputes. He supported the systematic arrangement of legal
materials, such as the treatment of property and obligations, and of specific rules
within those systematic arrangements. In sum, “Grotius was . . . a starting point
for the codifying lawyers of the Enlightenment and a support for an increasingly
mercantile society, in which good order and a clearly defined system of rules of
property and obligation were seen as highly desirable.” 3
Later jurisprudential writers influenced the development of the civil-law and
the codification process. Samuel Pufendorf and Christopher Wolff in Germany
attempted to build a legal system using the scientific methods of Galileo and
Descartes. This approach was characterized by the assertion of axioms from
which particular rules were logically deduced and then tested by experience and
observation. Scholars in other countries employed less rigorous techniques, but
the general approach was the same. In his attempts to build a complete and
rational system of law, and to promote law as a “science,” Pufendorf was a
particularly influential jurist, not only in Germany but throughout Europe. The
practice in modern codes of including introductory articles stating the general
principles of law that provide the framework for the subsequent sections can be
attributed to his work and influence.
The similarity of approach of the natural law scholars led to the conclusion in
one legal history that “codification in the sense of a rationally organized
statement of the whole field of law (or of all private law) was only possible after
the work of the natural lawyers.” 4 Of course these scholars had much legal
tradition with which to work, including Justinian’s Institutes, the glosses of the
Italian glossators, the commentaries of the post-glossator period, the collections
of ecclesiastical principles that became canon law, and the compilation of
commercial customs, rules, and regulations into various manifestations of the
law merchant.
The intellectual and social turmoil of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
centuries culminated in the eighteenth century in what has come to be known as
the Enlightenment. This intellectual movement included the French Revolution
and contained the near origins of the modern European codes. The
3. Id. at 361.
4. Id. at 416.

Enlightenment was based on a belief in the fundamental importance of reason as
a liberating force in intellectual life and in how society was organized, a belief
that grew out of the precepts of the natural law school. In Europe the effects and
influence of the Enlightenment provided the final stimulation for the creation of
the modern comprehensive codes of the different European states. Legal
philosophy, influenced by social philosophy, encouraged legal reform, including
new arrangements of legal topics within the unified system. Justinian’s Institutes
offered a convenient starting point for the codification process, because it
provided a rational statement of the legal principles and rules on almost the
entire range of subjects of private law and was a shared tradition in almost all
European legal systems. Finally, the egalitarian ideals of the age required that
citizens be knowledgeable on matters of law, so that each citizen could know
and understand his or her rights and duties under the law. These ideals in turn
encouraged simplification of the rules within a particular code, as well as
comprehensive coverage.
Although the codification process ultimately affected all European states to
one degree or another (with the exception of England), the leaders in the
codification process were France and Germany. Space limitations prevent
commentaries on the different codes; however, it is appropriate to examine
briefly the codification processes of France and Germany as examples for the
European legal systems, and those of two Latin American countries as ex-
emplary of the process in the New World.
The Codification Processes in France and

Germany
Codification in the sixteenth century differed from the codification process
during the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment periods of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. The former was “codification as a restatement of the law”
while the latter involved “a rationally organized statement of the whole field of
law.” In discussing the later codification processes, an appropriate starting point
is France, where Napoleon initiated a codification process at the beginning of
the nineteenth century. Not only was Napoleon responsible for the creation of
the modern French code, but he was also responsible for its dissemination to and
reception in the countries conquered by his armies.5
5. Napoleon regarded the creation of the Code Civil as his greatest achievement, overshadowing
even his great military victories. During his exile on St. Helena he remarked, “My true glory is not
that I have won forty battles. Waterloo will blow away the memory of these victories. What nothing
can blow away and will live eternally is my Civil Code.” Jean Louis Bergel, Principal Features and
Methods of Codification, 48 La. L. Rev. 1073, 1078–79 (1988), and Henri Mazeaud et al., Leçons de
droit civil, no. 45 (8th ed. 1986).

The French Code
In 1800, Napoleon appointed four senior practitioners of law to develop a
comprehensive legal code. These four practitioners were experienced jurists who
had studied Grotius, Pufendorf, and the other great writers of the natural law
school. The commission held 102 sessions, all in the relatively short period of
four years, devoted to drafting the code. The final product was presented to and
promptly passed by the French legislative body. This code, officially designated
the Code Civil des Français, was issued in 1804 in the form of three books with
2,281 articles. Later it came to be known as the Code Napoléon, but in its
present form is called simply the Code Civil.
The following is the basic structure of the Code Civil:
• Six articles at the beginning of the first book announce general principles
of law, including the publication, effects, and application of the law.
• Subsequent titles in Book I (articles 7–515) deal with civil rights and the
status of persons, and with marriage, divorce, and paternity.
• Book II (articles 516–710) covers real and personal property, and the
ownership and rights relating to such property.
• Book III (articles 711–2281) contains provisions on rights of succession,
contracts, and obligations (the law of obligations covers general
principles of obligations, as well as specific contracts, quasi-contracts,
delict (tort), security rights, and property rights in marriage).
The basic structure of the code reflects the influence of Justinian’s Corpus
Juris Civilis, while the overall design also conforms to the Declaration of the
Rights of Man produced during the French Revolution. The language is simple
and clear, since it was designed to be understood by every citizen. It does not
deal with procedure, commercial law, or criminal law; those three areas were
covered by codes developed later and separately.
The Code Civil has been amended and supplemented by later legislation, but
has never been completely revised. Because of the simplicity of some of the
articles, an extensive body of explanatory case law has developed and is used in
court opinions and judgments. A section of the Code Civil is contained in
Appendix B.
The German Code

Modern Germany ended up with a code that was largely the product of
codification processes in three Germanic states: Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria.
The three codification processes took place in the eighteenth century and
involved the work of commissions made up of legal scholars. The modern code
in Germany, still in effect, resulted from the creation of a commission by statute
in 1873 to codify German civil law. The result was a comprehensive code,
known as the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, or BGB, approved in 1896 and put into

effect on January 1, 1900. The BGB contains five books, to which various legal
subjects are assigned:
• Book I—General parts, including natural and juristic persons, the
definition of things, classification of legal acts, and prescriptive periods.
• Book II—The law of obligations, including creation and discharge of
obligations, contracts, and the law of delict.
• Book III—The law of real and personal property, including the
ownership and possession of property and servitudes on property and
securities.
• Book IV—Family law, including marriage and other relationships within
the family.
• Book V—The law of succession, including hereditary succession and the
rights of heirs, wills, settlements, and requirements of proof relating to
inheritance.
Sections of the German code appear in Appendix C.
The Codes of Chile and Brazil

Of particular significance to U.S. judges and lawyers are the civil-law systems in
Latin American countries, given their proximity and “American” culture, and
the prospect of broader trade and economic relations among the countries of the
hemisphere. Spanish law was responsible for the reception of Roman law in
Central and South America through the colonizing activities of the
conquistadors and those who followed them. This is true even for Brazil, once a
colony of Portugal, which was in turn under the control of Spain from 1580 to
1640, a critical time of colonization.
Legal developments in North America also influenced Latin American legal
systems, primarily in the area of constitutional theory and practice and the
structure of government. Many Latin American countries absorbed the ideas and
principles of constitutional government promulgated during the American
Revolution and adapted them for their constitutions and public law. But the
private law and many of the characteristics of the different systems remained
European, sometimes, in the words of one observer, “more European than the
Europeans themselves.” Thus the content of civil, commercial, and procedural
codes, legal education, the structure of the legal profession, the influence of
legal scholars, and the role of the judge in the judicial process in almost all Latin
American countries conform very much to the civil-law tradition that evolved in
central and western Europe.
The reception of Spanish law into many Latin American countries—and with
it, Roman law—was not a well-ordered process. After the Spanish conquests,
Spanish law itself became a jumble of codes, legislation, and judicial decisions.
All Spanish law was not consolidated into one collection until 1803 with the

publication of a digest, the Nueva Recopilación. The appropriateness of the
application of the earlier “jumble” to the New World was questionable, because
no attempt was made to adapt Spanish law to the exigencies of local situations
or to accommodate it with the conditions and the culture of the various
countries.
While space does not permit commentary on the codes of all the systems of
the twenty-one countries in Central and South America, a review of two of the
systems is important. The codification processes in Chile and Brazil are
significant because of the great influence of the Chilean code on those of many
of other Latin American countries and because of the size and influence of
Brazil generally in Latin American affairs and the uniqueness of its situation as
a former Portuguese colony.
Modern codification processes in Latin American countries did not really
begin until the middle part of the nineteenth century. The process in Chile was
started, in the civil-law tradition, by an inspiring jurist, Andres Bello. This
remarkable individual immigrated from Venezuela in 1829 and, self-taught in
law, became a recognized authority on both Roman and Spanish law, as well as
learned in other scholarly disciplines, including philosophy, languages, and
literature. Within two years of his arrival in Chile—perhaps recognizing the
chaos of the Chilean laws received from Spain—he started drafting, without any
grant of authority, a new civil code for his adopted country.
In 1840, the Chilean legislature created a commission to accomplish that
same purpose—the commission consisted of five members from the two Chilean
legislative bodies. One member of the commission was Bello, who by that time
had been elected to the Chilean Senate. He eventually completed, with but
modest assistance from his legislative colleagues, an entire new civil code that
was given legislative approval in 1856 and went into force in 1857.
The preparation and adoption of the new code in Chile proved to be a
watershed event in South and Central America, as it was adopted almost intact
by Colombia and Ecuador, and was used as a model for the civil codes of
Argentina, Paraguay, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Even today the
Chilean code and the legal system on which it is based are viewed as the most
advanced and influential among the Spanish-speaking countries of Central and
South America.
Bello, and the commission that sometimes assisted him, drew on a number of
sources for the new Chilean code, of which the most prominent were Roman law
(primarily from the Corpus Juris Civilis), Spanish law (including the Codigo de
Las Siete Partidas and the glosses on that work by later Spanish jurists), the
Code Civil of France, other European civil codes (including those of Prussia and
Austria), and the treatises and scholarly writings of Spanish and French jurists.
One commentator noted the sources of particular parts of the Chilean code:
“[T]he provisions respecting easements are based on the French civil code,

aqueduct on the Sardinian code, father and children on Spanish law, and
contracts on the works of [French jurist Robert] Pothier.” 6 The Chilean code,
which has undergone major revisions since its mid-nineteenth-century adoption,
primarily by later legislation, still remains in force.
The Portuguese brought law and a legal system to Brazil; however, they were
Portuguese with a Spanish flavor. While Portugal was united with Spain in the
late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Portuguese law underwent a
major revision and recompilation. The result was the Ordinances of Philip II
(1603), comprehensive legislation covering many aspects of private and criminal
law based on Roman law, canon law, customary law, municipal charters and
statutes, and early Portuguese legislation. The Ordinances were received in
Brazil and were a major component of Brazilian private law until a new civil
code was adopted in 1916. The modern codification process began in Brazil in
the mid-nineteenth century with the adoption of a penal code in 1830, a code of
criminal procedure in 1833, a commercial code in 1850, and the new civil code
in 1916.
The Brazilian legal system, for certain cultural and historical reasons, is
characterized by legalism (i.e., the regulation of social relations by legislation)
and formalism (i.e., the insistence on legal formalities, such as authenticity and
verification, for many routine transactions and activities). These two
characteristics, perhaps reflecting the temperament of the Brazilian people, have
resulted in an obsession with legal codes. In addition to the aforementioned
codes dealing with private law, crimes, criminal procedure, and commercial law,
Brazil has, among others, a water code, an air code, a mining code, a health
code, an industrial property code, a telecommunications code, a traffic code, a
tax code, and an electoral code.
The Civil Code of Brazil has been described as the “greatest monument to
legal thought and codification in Latin America.” It is similar in structure to the
German BGB, being divided into three parts that cover (1) general principles,
(2) the law of persons, things, and rights, and (3) the law of family, property,
obligations, and succession. It has been amended by legislation since its
promulgation, primarily in the area of domestic relations, but it is still in force.
The greatest influence on this code’s substantive provisions was the Code Civil
of France. A new penal code, however, reflects the influence of the
contemporary German criminal code.
6. John H. Merryman & David S. Clark, Comparative Law: Western European and Latin
American Legal Systems 213 (1978).

The Development of the Role of Jurists in
Modern Systems
As the legal systems of Europe developed, the evolution of the role of jurists in
the different countries diverged. In particular, the German model became
distinctly different from the French one.
The civil codes, based as they are on the Corpus Juris Civilis, emphasize
form, structure, and the enumeration of both abstract and concrete principles of
law within a unified whole. The reasoning process from code provisions is
deductive—one arrives at conclusions about specific situations from general
principles. The function of the jurists within and for the civil-law system is to
analyze the basic codes and legislation for the formulation of general theories
and extract, enumerate, and expound on the principles of law contained in and to
be derived from them. The jurists apply deductive reasoning to suggest an
appropriate judgment or result in specific cases. Historically their work took the
form of treatises and commentaries that became the “doctrine” used by judges in
their deliberations about specific cases, lawyers for advice to their clients, and
legislators in the preparation of statutes and regulations. One commentator
described the role of doctrine succinctly:
In civil law countries, the treatises and commentaries of legal
writers are generally expressed in systematic expositions and in
discussions about broad legal principles. These works formulate
general theories about basic codes and legislation, in relation to the
evolution of the legal system as a whole. . . . In the civil law, doctrine
is an inherent part of the system and is indispensable to a systematic
and analytical understanding of it. The doctrine is not a recognized
source of law, but it has exercised a great influence in the
development of law. It molds the minds of students, it gives direction
to the work of the practitioners and to the deliberations of judges, and
it guides the legislators towards consistency and systemization.7
One example of the role of jurists in modern civil-law systems is the famous
Brazilian legal scholar, Pontes de Miranda. In the early and middle parts of the
twentieth century, de Miranda wrote many books on Brazilian law that are
referred to in Brazilian judicial opinions and used in the drafting of Brazilian
legislation. His greatest work, Treatise on Private Law, consists of sixty-two
volumes of commentary on the civil code. This monumental exposition is the
basic reference work for Brazilian lawyers, judges, and legislators on subjects
covered in that code.
In the reception of Roman law into Germany and France, the respective
developments in the two countries took different paths, at least as far as the
7. Joseph Dainow, The Civil Law and the Common Law: Some Points of Comparison,
15 Am J. Comp. Law 419, 428 (1966–1967).

significance of jurists and doctrine is concerned. In Germany the status of jurists
and juridical doctrine, in the manner of Rome, was enhanced, while in France it
was diminished.
One of the reasons for the elevation of the role of jurists in Germany was the
condition of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century German courts, staffed by
lay judges untrained and unsophisticated in the law. The untrained lay judges
required impartial advice, and this situation, in the manner of the judices in
Rome, led to the practice of the German judges at first merely seeking advice
from the law faculties of the universities, then to asking the law faculties for a
draft of a decree or judgment in a particular case, and ultimately to the practice
of sending an entire file to the professors “for their collective and binding
decision.”
Thus the law professors, the academic jurists in Germany, eventually as-
sumed the role of unofficial and unappointed judges. Their views and opinions
were incorporated into the private law of the state and became the chief vehicle
by which the law was administered. These jurists became the functional
equivalents of the patented jurists in Rome, whose opinions had the “force of
law.” This situation undoubtedly also affected the status of the judicial decision
within the legal system. Since the German professors were writing the decisions
according to their own developed doctrine, there was no need to consult judicial
precedent when confronted with a particular case. Thus legal precedent had no
particular force in the development of the German legal system.
In France, the role and influence of jurists was lessened. The monarchy
encouraged legally trained men into the judiciary. The result was that the
formally trained judges were not compelled to seek outside legal advice in the
manner of their German counterparts. Consequently, French legal scholars and
law professors were never able to achieve the standing and power accorded their
colleagues in Germany. Most of the leading jurists in France were practicing
lawyers and judges. The leading jurists of the pre-Napoleanic period in France,
Charles Dumoulin (1500–1566) and Robert Pothier (1699–1772), were not law
professors. Dumoulin was an advocate and later “consultant,” and Pothier was a
judge for over fifty years of his long professional life. Thus the current French
code is the product of practitioners rather than legal scholars of the German
tradition.
This contrast in the relative influence of German and French jurists can be
illustrated by reference to two appellate cases that are reproduced in Appendix
D, one French and one German.8 Both cases involve an issue of tort liability of
individuals involved in concerted activities. The French decision is cryptic,
containing only about 500 words and citing only two sections of the code and no
doctrinal treatises. The German decision is longer—about 2,000 words—with a
8. These two cases were cited in Merryman & Clark, supra note 6, at 628–36.

more lengthy analysis of the issues, and cites not only relevant code provisions,
but the writings of at least three German jurists. The two cases are also
instructive about the role of precedent in these countries. The French decision
contains none, and the German decision only three.

Part II:
The Civil-Law System As It Exists and
Functions in the Modern Era
The Public Law–Private Law Dichotomy

The generally accepted way of dividing and classifying the law in the civil-law
world is quite different from that to which common-law lawyers are ac-
customed. The fundamental division in modern civil-law systems is that be-
tween “public” and “private” law. To civil lawyers, this distinction is basic,
necessary, and self-evident.
Despite the universal recognition of this distinction in the civil-law world,
there is no agreement among civil-law lawyers on its theoretical basis (other
than perhaps its historical basis—e.g., the Corpus Juris Civilis), and no uni-
formity among countries as to the scope of public and private law. As ex-
emplified in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century civil codes, private law has
been described as “that area of the law in which the sole function of government
was the recognition and enforcement of private rights.”9 Thus, today private law
includes at least the civil and commercial codes. The proper classification of
other areas is often disputed. Civil procedure, for example, is treated as public in
some countries and as private in others. Labor law, social security, and various
topics of government regulation are often referred to as “mixed” public and
private areas.
Public law, by contrast, focuses on “the effectuation of the public interest by
state action.” Today public law includes at least what a common-law attorney
would recognize as constitutional law, administrative law, and criminal law.
While public law has its roots in Roman law, it remained largely undeveloped
until modern times, when the centralized state and its administrative apparatus
began to flourish on the European continent following the Treaty of Westphalia
in 1648. As administrative law developed in the nineteenth century, it became
obvious to civil-law lawyers that the usual private-law rules that apply to
disputes between individuals do not lend themselves easily to resolving disputes
involving the state. Moreover, a trend emerged toward some form of review of
the legality of state administrative action.
9. John H. Merryman, The Civil Law Tradition 92 (2d ed. 1985).
23
Several distinctive characteristics distinguish public from private law. Most
important, public law generally is not part of comprehensive civil codes. Instead,
public law consists of various statutes, supplemented liberally by judge-made
norms, that regulate the organization and function of public authorities and the
relationship between public agencies and individual citizens. Public law tends to
be more fluid than the civil codes since it may change rapidly in response to
political forces.
The public–private distinction dictates many of the basic features of legal
practice in civil-law countries. The structure and jurisdiction of the courts in
civil-law countries roughly correspond to private- and public-law matters, with
private-law issues the province of the “ordinary” courts, and public-law matters
addressed in separate “administrative” courts. Legal education and law practice
likewise remain divided mainly along public–private lines. A teacher of the
private law of property, for example, would be unlikely to attempt to teach about
property taxation, land-use regulation, or the constitutional protection of
property rights; those topics would be left to a specialist in public law.
Nonetheless, in the twentieth century several factors have led to a rethinking
of the strict division between public and private law. These factors include the
expanding influence of the common law, the increasing role of government in
legal areas traditionally treated as private, a general trend toward written
constitutions and acceptance of judicial review, the increased influence of
organizations (e.g., trade unions), and the growth of legal fields that defy
categorization as public or private.
Court Structure
In contrast to the unified court system typical of common-law countries, several
separate court systems often coexist in civil-law countries. A case falling within
the jurisdiction of one court generally is immune from jurisdiction in all others.
While the typical common-law judicial system may be drawn as a pyramid with
the “highest” court at the top, the typical civil-law judicial system would be
represented as a set of two or more distinct struc tures with no bridge between
them.
As a general matter, a system of “ordinary” courts, staffed by “ordinary”
judges, adjudicates the vast majority of civil and criminal cases. Ordinary courts
are the modern-day successors of the various civil courts that existed in Europe
during the period of the jus commune, before the growth of the modern
administrative state. Their jurisdiction has expanded to include matters formerly
addressed by the ecclesiastical tribunals, as well as commercial disputes. The
ordinary courts apply the law found in the civil, commercial, and penal codes,
and in legislation supplementing those codes.

In the French system, the apex of the ordinary court structure is the Cour de
Cassation (Supreme Court of Cassation). The court reviews, on a discretionary
basis, only questions of statutory interpretation. The Court of Cassation is
composed of about 100 judges who sit in six rotating specialized panels (five
civil and one criminal) and, in certain situations, in combined panels or plenary
session.
The first level of French ordinary courts consists of general civil and criminal
trial courts and several specialized courts. Cases arising under the commercial
code, for example, are first heard in a commercial court in which the panels of
part-time judges are businessmen elected by their colleagues. Similarly,
employment disputes are heard by a labor court consisting of two elected
representatives from labor and management. The labor court first attempts to
settle cases by conciliation; if the case proceeds to adjudication, a professional
judge sits with the lay panel. Appeals from the trial-level courts proceed to a
court of appeal within the territorial jurisdiction of the lower court.
The German model relies on several independent court systems, each with its
own supreme court. In addition to the hierarchy of the ordinary (civil and
criminal) courts, there are separate systems of labor courts, tax courts, and social
security courts. The lower courts generally sit in panels of three professional
judges, although commercial matters are heard by a panel of two lay judges and
one professional judge. Lay involvement in labor matters also extends to the
appellate level, where the judge acts in consultation with labor and management
representatives. Final review from all of the German court systems is available
in the Federal Constitutional Court, which exercises the power of judicial
review.
Latin American court structures vary greatly, with some based on separate
national subject-matter courts, and others influenced by the United States’s
federal–state court system (e.g., Mexico, Brazil).
Apart from the ordinary courts, typical civil-law court systems also include a
set of administrative courts that exercise independent jurisdiction. The creation
of administrative courts grew out of the strong tradition of separation of powers,
a by-product of the French Revolution, that established the legislature as the
preeminent source of law. Within that tradition, the judiciary was not viewed as
competent to render decisions on the legality of administrative action. In France
the need for a review procedure was eventually met through the Council of
State, a body that began as advisers to the King and gradually became the
central point for review of government conduct. Today, the Council of
State—whose members are public administrators with training different from
that of the ordinary judiciary—is the principal source of French administrative
law. Other countries, including Belgium and Italy, have followed the French
model and have allocated similar administrative jurisdiction to their own
The Civil-Law System As It Exists and Functions 25

councils of state. In Germany and countries that follow its model, special
administrative courts have been created.
In theory, ordinary court and administrative court jurisdiction is separate and
exclusive, but disputes arise. In France, a special Tribunal of Conflicts decides
which is the proper court for a disputed case. In Germany, the court in which the
case is filed decides whether it has jurisdiction and may transfer cases over
which it declines jurisdiction. A decision refusing jurisdiction is binding in the
transferee court. In other countries, such as Italy, the Court of Cassation is the
final authority on conflicts of jurisdiction.
Constitutional law poses a special problem for civil-law judicial adminis-
tration. The recent adoption of written constitutions, for example in Germany
and Italy since World War II, illustrates the extent to which the public–private
law dichotomy affects court structure and jurisdiction. In those countries, some
method of reviewing legislative action for constitutionality was necessary, yet it
was clear that this power could not be exercised by the judiciary (i.e., the
ordinary judiciary) without violating the doctrine of separation of powers and
limiting the supremacy of the legislature.
Just as the development of the modern administrative state led to the creation
of a separate jurisdiction to review the legality of administrative actions, in
Germany and Italy the solution to the question of judicial review was to
establish separate constitutional courts. Civil-law fundamentalists have
occasionally argued that these tribunals cannot really be “courts,” since civil-law
courts, strictly speaking, merely interpret and apply the law made by the
legislature. Nonetheless, this view has yielded in the same way that most
observers now regard entities such as the French Council of State as a “court”
and its officials as “judges.” Thus, the strong principle of separation of powers
and the traditional civil-law limits on judges’ powers continue to apply to the
work of the ordinary judiciary. Conversely, the separate administrative and
constitutional courts are not thought to violate that principle.
The Legal Process

Civil Procedure
Modern codes of civil procedure stress that judicial proceedings are public and
controlled by the parties. Party control, however, is somewhat tempered by the
extensive power of the civil-law judge to supervise and shape the fact-finding
process and by the role of the public prosecutor in private actions.
In contrast to the progressive unfolding of evidence—under near complete
control of the parties—that occurs through the discovery process in the
American common-law system, there is no formal civil-law counterpart to
discovery. Nor, in most cases, is there any single event that the common-law
lawyer would recognize as a trial. Instead, a civil-law civil action is a continuing

series of meetings, hearings, and written communications through which
evidence is introduced and evaluated, testimony is taken, and motions are made
and decided. Initial pleadings are quite general, and the issues are defined at the
direction of the judge as the proceedings progress.
The civil process tends to be conducted primarily in writing, and the concept
of a highly concentrated and dramatic “trial” in the common-law sense is not
emphasized. Thus, a lawyer who wishes to question a witness must first submit
to the judge and opposing counsel “articles of proof” describing the scope of the
potential questions. The witness will be questioned at a later hearing at which
the judge will typically ask the questions, often framing or reformulating the
issues raised in the case. Cross-examination is uncommon. Instead, opposing
counsel’s role is to make certain that the record summary of the testimony is
complete and correct.
The judge supervises the collection of evidence and preparation of a
summary of the record on which a decision will be based. Since there is no
“pretrial” phase of the proceeding, the evidence is not “discovered” in the sense
understood by common-law lawyers. Instead, the parties submit proposed
evidence to the judge in writing or at oral hearings, and the judge delivers
rulings concerning the relevance and admissibility of evidence. Admissible
evidence is presented, for the first and only time, in the final hearing that
constitutes the trial.
Many of the differences between the common-law and civil-law judicial
process may be attributed to the absence of the civil jury. While some spe-
cialized courts involve lay people in the court’s decision-making process, such
“lay judges” are not usually chosen on the basis of their impartiality, as are
common-law jurors. Lay judges are generally selected on the basis of experience
in the subject matter of the court (e.g., labor law), or as representatives of a
particular interest group (e.g., unions or management). Unlike common-law
jurors, lay judges usually serve for a continuing term instead of only a single
case.
Civil-law procedure does not emphasize the need to have a single-event trial
because there is no need to convene a jury to hear the evidence, find the facts,
and apply the law to the facts. The absence of the civil jury also helps to explain
the relative lack of restrictions on the admissibility of evi dence in the civil-law
system. Hearsay and opinion evidence is more freely admitted than in common-
law systems. Issues of evidentiary weight are left to the judge.
Nonetheless, there are indications that the common-law and civil-law
procedures are not as different as they appear. American pretrial discovery, for
example, significantly reduces the amount of “surprise” evidence that will come
forth at trial. And efficiency concerns have led some civil-law countries, such as
Germany, to experiment with more concentrated trials to resolve simple cases. A
central difference between the common-law and civil-law systems, according to

one analysis, is that the common-law system “leaves to partisans the work of
gathering and producing the factual material upon which adjudication
depends.”10 In contrast, lawyers in the civil-law system mainly act as “law
adversaries” (i.e., arguing points of law), and judges more actively control the
investigation and fact-finding process. The public prosecutor may also have a
role in a civil case (see infra page 31).
Criminal Procedure
The typical criminal proceeding in a civil-law court is divided into three phases:
the investigative phase, the examining phase, and the trial. In the investigative
phase, a government official (generally the public prosecutor) collects evidence
and decides whether it is sufficient to warrant formal charges.
During the examining phase, which is primarily conducted in writing, an
examining judge completes and reviews the written record and decides whether
the case should proceed to trial. At this stage, the defendant may be questioned,
but has the right to remain silent and to be represented by counsel. The
examining judge plays an active role in the collection of evidence and
interrogation of witnesses. As in civil proceedings, however, there is no
counterpart to common-law cross-examination.
As a result of the thoroughness of the examining phase, the trial itself differs
significantly from a common-law criminal trial. Perhaps the most striking
difference is that the record already has been made and is equally available to
the defense and the prosecution well in advance of trial. The main function of a
criminal trial is to present the case to the trial judge and, in certain cases, the
jury, and to allow the lawyers to present oral argument in public.
As noted above, civil-law countries do not have a tradition of jury trials in
civil cases. Some countries, however, have introduced the jury trial for serious
criminal matters, while others use a combination of lay judges and professional
judges in criminal cases.
Appellate Procedure
A primary difference between common-law and civil-law appellate procedure is
that intermediate appellate review in the civil-law tradition often involves a de
novo review of both the facts and law of the case. Thus, intermediate appellate
courts may obtain additional testimony, supervise the collection of new
evidence, and seek out expert opinions. In some civil-law systems, appellate
review in criminal cases does not involve de novo factual review. In Germany,
10. John H. Langbein, Restricting Adversary Involvement in the Proof of Fact: Lessons from
Continental Civil Procedure, Speech to the American College of Trial Lawyers, September 25, 1984,
cited in Mary Ann Glendon et al., Comparative Legal Traditions 169 n.2 (1985).

for example, most criminal trial court decisions are subject to appeal only on
points of law, and those appeals are heard by an appellate court of last resort.
Appellate courts of last resort, like their common-law counterparts, generally
consider only questions of law. Some of these courts follow the French system
of “cassation,” in which the court decides only the question of law that has been
referred to it, not the case itself. The Court of Cassation may either affirm the
lower court decision or remand the case for reconsideration to a different lower
court. The remand court is, in theory, free to decide the case the same way as the
previous lower court. If that occurs, a second appeal may be taken to the Court
of Cassation, which will then sit in plenary session. The court may then issue a
dispositive ruling in some cases; in others it must remand the case to a third
lower court to issue the judgment. In the German system, the high court may
reverse, remand, or modify the lower court decision and enter the judgment
itself.
Legal Actors: Tradition and Transition

The division of legal labor in the civil-law world is greatly influenced by the
traditional dogma of legal science. This generally accepted legal “folklore,” as
Prof. John Merryman refers to it, deeply affects the way legislators, judges, and
lawyers work.
Legal Scholars
According to the legal folklore, the legal scholar does the “basic thinking” for
the legal system. Indeed, academic lawyers continue to enjoy an honored place
in the civil-law tradition. The civil-law codes historically have been greatly
influenced by the work of legal scholars, as has been indicated in the earlier
historical section of this treatise. Judges and legislatures, as a general matter,
look to legal scholars for definitive views on the law. Though legal scholarship
is not a formal source of law, the “doctrine” as developed by scholars is highly
valued in the civil-law tradition.
The Legislature
The legislature in the civil-law tradition strives to supplement and update the
codes in those areas in which the legal scholars have suggested that codes are
defective or incomplete. New legislation, therefore, in theory employs the
concepts and follows the structure established by the legal scholars and
embodied in the earlier codes. Legislatures seek completeness and clarity,
attempting to produce laws that are consistent with the tenets of legal science
and compatible with the established legal order.

Judges
Judges typically enter judicial service at the lower levels of the judiciary—they
enter directly from law school after passing state qualifying examinations.
Judicial service is analogous to a career in civil service in the United States, with
judges moving up the court hierarchy based on seniority and merit. The standard
image of the civil-law judge is one of “a civil servant who performs important
but essentially uncreative functions.”11
The judge’s role is a simple and narrow one, limited by strict notions of
legislative supremacy. Civil-law judges, in theory, are the “operators” of the
system designed by legal scientists and built by legislators. Since there is only
one correct solution to a legal problem, according to legal science and the
developed doctrine, judicial discretion or interpretation becomes largely
unnecessary.
Legal Education and Lawyers

The basic civil-law training is an undergraduate education in law. Courses tend
to focus on general legal principles, as opposed to professional skills and
problem solving. Such practical skills are acquired, if necessary, through later
apprenticeship. Consistent with the tradition of legal science, civil-law students
study legal treatises that expound the established principles of the law with little
“case-method” analysis. Active class participation is unusual; typically the
professor lectures to large classes.
A civil-law student chooses, upon graduation, among the several branches of
the legal profession. Since there is little mobility within the profession, the
student’s choice is likely to be final. These choices include a career as a judge, a
public prosecutor, a government lawyer, an advocate (private practice), or a
notary.
In most civil-law countries, private legal practice is roughly divided between
the advocate and the notary. The advocate meets with and advises clients, and
represents them in court. Advocates generally serve as apprentices to
experienced lawyers for several years after law school, and then practice law in
small firms or as solo practitioners. Private lawyers are generally governed by
mandatory bar associations, which set practice rules and fee schedules.
The civil-law notary serves three basic functions: (1) drafting legal doc-
uments such as wills, corporate charters, and contracts; (2) authenticating such
documents in legal proceedings; and (3) keeping records on, or providing copies
of, authenticated documents (also called “public acts”). Entry to the notary
profession generally involves taking a state examination.
11. Merryman, supra note 9, at 84.

Government lawyers serve either as public prosecutors or as lawyers for
government agencies. The public prosecutor plays a dual role in the civil-law
tradition. In addition to preparing the government’s case in criminal matters, the
prosecutor represents the public interest in some civil cases. On the theory that
the parties to a civil case will not provide the judge with a full picture of the
facts and law, the prosecutor may intervene to assert the public interest, as
opposed to the interest of the state. In some civil-law countries, the public
prosecutor is trained as a judge, and may move easily from one position to the
other during his or her career.
Transition in the Civil-Law World

As commentators both within and outside the civil-law world have observed,
theory and practice are often in tension, and this tension is reflected in the
changing roles of the actors in the legal system. Legislative practice often falls
short of its objective to provide a clear, systematic legislative prescription for
every legal problem that may arise. As a result, judges frequently must interpret
vague code sections, and there is a growing body of judge-made law that
provides a gloss on the codes. In countries with older code systems, such as
France, the effects of judicial interpretation are particularly obvious and far
reaching. Thus, in France the law of delict (torts), which is covered only in the
most general way by the Code Civil, is primarily the product of modern judicial
decisions.
Lawyers, in turn, tend to do more than simply peruse the codes for relevant
provisions. The decisions of the high courts are regularly published and lawyers
cite them in subsequent cases. Likewise, judges rely on prior decisions to
support their own case analysis. As in common-law systems, judges look to
higher court decisions as final, authoritative rulings on interpretation of statutes,
and a de facto system of precedent has taken root.
The civil-law world, then, is in transition. The gap between theory and reality
has been aptly summarized by Merryman:
The folklore is clearly losing its power, but until some new, ac-
ceptable, coherent view of the legal process appears to replace it, it
will continue to occupy the field. It is still the residual model of the
legal process, and even scholars who recognize that this model is not
working spend more effort trying to perfect its basic design than in
trying to design a better model.12
12. Merryman, supra note 9, at 37.

Part III:
The Common Law and a Comparison of
the Civil-Law and Common-Law Systems
Origins of the Common-Law System

At the time the Italian glossators were at work interpreting and applying the
Corpus Juris Civilis, and before Accursius started work on his Great Gloss from
1220 to 1260, a new legal system was developing in Britain, in many ways
inspired by the institution of the jury system.
Although ancient Greece had a procedure somewhat analogous to the modern
jury system, the true origin of that system was in medieval France and was
connected with royal power. The system originated with Frankish kings, who
from time to time ordered a group of men, “the best and most trustworthy in the
district,” to declare, after being sworn in, what lands were owned by the king in
the district and what rights he had or ought to have there. This procedure was
often used as a substitute for trial by battle or ordeal.
Soon after the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, the
practice of a sworn inquest of neighbors about some issue or problem, usually
involving land, was adopted as a feature of government. In fact, the Domesday
Book, the record of boundaries of land in England, written between 1081 and
1086, was a compilation of jury verdicts about boundaries. In its first guise in
England the jury was a group of persons, usually local cit izenry or a body of
neighbors, who were summoned by a public official and, after the administration
of an oath, were bound to tell the truth “whatever the truth may be” in response
to a specific question. The questions that were posed to these juries were not
always related to specific disputes between individuals.
The use of juries was not a frequent practice in England until the reign of
Henry II, who decided in 1164 that a procedure using juries should be a “normal
part of the machinery of justice.” Two years later Henry II mandated a
procedure requiring jury trials for persons dispossessed of lands. By the time of
King John in the thirteenth century, the right to a jury trial in criminal cases was
so pervasive that it was immortalized in 1215 at Runnymede with the signing of
the Magna Carta.
Roman law had been carried early to Britain by scholars and teachers trained
in the Italian universities. For example, Vacarius, a master at Bologna, settled in
33
England in the first half of the twelfth century and published a book on
Justinian’s Code and Digest. Canon law was the only other law taught at
Oxford, and later at Cambridge, and neither canon nor Roman law proved
satisfactory for the needs of the new legal system. The arrival and adoption of
the jury trial as a mechanism for resolving disputes, the creation of royal courts
to dispense justice throughout the realm and a cadre of trained judges to preside
over and administer them, and the rising commercial affairs in London resulted
in a turning away from Roman and ecclesiastical law. Lawyers and judges in
London created a new institution, the inn of court, to train lawyers in adversary
practice and the art of advocacy. Other characteristics of the new system
gradually emerged over the centuries—the expansion of jury trials to more types
of civil cases, reliance by judges on precedent, and inductive reasoning based on
precedent to create the substance of the law—and legal norms applicable to all
parts of the country helped lay the foundations for a new comprehensive
jurisprudence that replaced the old patchwork feudal law of local areas. The
common-law system was being born.
Jurists in the Common-Law System

Jurists of the type prominent in civil-law systems do not exist in the common-
law tradition. One commentator summed up the basic distinction between the
common-law system and the civil-law system in terms of the role of jurists:
“The most striking difference between the civil and the common law lies in the
greater relative importance which, in the former system, is attributed to the
opinions of jurists as compared with prior decisions of the courts.”13 There are
several reasons for a different role to be played by jurists in common-law
countries. One reason, referred to in the above quote, is the elevated importance
of judicial precedent. Moreover, since legal precedent guides the development of
the common law, there is no need for legal scholars to devise and develop a
comprehensive system of law, nor is there need for the methods of legal science
to arrive at a decision in a case. Precedent thus obviated the creation of a body
of jurists of the kind found in civil-law countries.
13. John C. Gray, The Nature and Sources of the Law 252 (1909). Gray was particularly hard on
common-law juristic writings:
The greater part of most textbooks at the common law, and the whole of many of
them, are not devoted to the statement of such opinions [of men learned in the law];
they do not contain or profess any original or independent thinking or conclusions;
they are simply collections of statutes and precedents; their merit or demerit lying
solely in their good or bad arrangement.
Id. at 247.
On the subject of jurists, Gray commented: “If the common law has been wise in attaching great
weight to precedents, it has certainly not held out sufficient welcome to jurists.” Id. at 264.

Three generalizations can be made about jurists in the common-law systems:
(1) the majority of jurists, at least from a historical standpoint, and practically all
the great jurists, have been judges (e.g., Kent, Coke, Blackstone, Mansfield); (2)
legal writings of jurists are heavily endowed with reference to cases (e.g.,
restatement series) and whatever principles or trends in the law can be extracted
from case law (using an inductive reasoning process like the Roman jurists’, as
opposed to the deductive reasoning of the civil law); and (3) treatises and
commentaries of jurists actually play a very small role in the judicial decision-
making process and the development of law through legislation, and exert little,
if any, influence on judges and legislators.
For each of the above generalizations there are exceptions, some notable.
Great works of legal literature in the United States that have had a significant
impact on the development of certain areas of substantive law include the
treatises of Samuel Williston and Arthur Corbin on the law of contracts and
John Wigmore on the law of evidence. In addition, the collective work of law
professors, judges, and lawyers of the American Law Institute has produced the
Restatement of the Law series, which has influenced the development of
substantive law in some areas. The series of codes for individual states in the
United States known as the Uniform Code series, which stand as a model for
individual state legislation, could also be attributed to the collective efforts of
jurists.
Having noted these exceptions, it still must be emphasized that the jurists in
common-law countries remain relatively unimportant. The tradition is still
overwhelmingly case oriented, almost to the complete exclusion of juristic
writings, which are rarely consulted by practicing lawyers and not often cited in
judicial opinions. The result is that the common law is open-ended and
antithetical to system-building of the type found in civil-law countries.
Differences in the Two Systems

Some specific differences between the civil-law and common-law systems have
already been identified, and others may have occurred to the reader. A
discussion and delineation of some of the major differences between the two
systems will perhaps clarify these comparisons and suggest other not so obvious
distinctions.
The influence of the Corpus Juris Civilis on the civil-law system has been
significant and abiding, while its influence on the structure of the common law
has been modest. The Corpus Juris Civilis furnished many of the substantive
rules of law contained in the forerunners of the major legal codes of European
countries. Undoubtedly the Corpus also influenced the development of at least
some of the common-law rules and principles. While Roman law was taught at
Oxford before the common-law system emerged in England after the thirteenth
A Comparison of the Civil-Law and Common-Law Systems 35

century, the influence of Roman law was not as pervasive as in the civil-law
countries.
The codification process, derived from the Corpus Juris Civilis, is another
distinguishing characteristic of the two systems. Civil-law countries have
comprehensive codes, often developed from a single drafting event. The codes
cover an abundance of legal topics, sometimes treating separately private law,
criminal law, and commercial law. While common-law countries have statutes
in those areas, sometimes collected into codes, they have been derived more
from an ad hoc process over many years. Moreover, codes of common-law
countries very often reflect the rules of law enunciated in judicial decisions (i.e.,
they are the statutory embodiment of rules developed through the judicial
decision-making process).
The existence of integrated, comprehensive codes in civil-law countries and
the lack thereof in common-law countries has also resulted in another point of
contrast: the existence and growth of equity law. This is ironic in light of the fact
that the concept of equity law originated in Rome, at a time when the jus civile
could not be used to cover situations involving non-Roman peoples coming
under the umbrella of the Empire, and for whom some manner of law had to be
developed. Equity law developed in England as a legal method to soften the
often harsh effects of judicial precedent or legislation; to establish different
procedures that might be required for a particular issue in the interests of
fairness when common-law remedies were not available or could not ensure a
just result in a particular case; and to deal with new problems that called for
different remedies than the common law provided. But there is no comparable
equity law in civil-law countries; the system orientation of the codes would not
permit the growth of another branch of law outside the framework of the system.
Equity would disrupt the certainty required in the interests of legal science.
Equitable principles and remedies, to the extent they exist in the civil-law
tradition, would be built into the structure of the codes as part of the overall
system.
The codification/judicial-decision dichotomy relating to the development of
legal principles has given rise to two other distinctions between the systems: the
role of judicial decisions in the making of law, and the manner of legal
reasoning. In civil-law systems, the role and influence of judicial precedent, at
least until more recent times, has been negligible (possibly as a result of
Justinian’s dictum, quoted earlier); in the common-law countries, precedent has
been elevated to a position of supreme prominence. Civil-law judges or their
scholar-advisers initially look to code provisions to resolve a case, while
common-law judges instinctively reach for casebooks to find the solution to an
issue in a case.
Comprehensive legal codes forming general frameworks of private,
commercial, and criminal law such as exist in the civil-law systems also affect

methods of legal reasoning. In the civil-law tradition, the reasoning process is
deductive, proceeding from stated general principles or rules of law contained in
the legal codes to a specific solution. In common-law countries the process is the
reverse—judges apply inductive reasoning, deriving general principles or rules
of law from precedent or a series of specific decisions and extracting an
applicable rule, which is then applied to a particular case.
The structures of courts are distinctly different in the two systems. Common-
law systems favor integrated court systems with courts of general jurisdiction
available to adjudicate criminal and most types of civil cases, including those
involving constitutional law, administrative law, and commercial law. Civil-law
systems, on the other hand, following the tradition of separate codes for separate
areas of law, favor specialty court systems and specialty courts to deal with
constitutional law, criminal law, administrative law, commercial law, and civil
or private law.
The trial process is different in the two systems. In the civil-law system, the
single-event trial is unknown, and trials involve an extended process with a
series of successive hearings and consultations for the presentation and
consideration of evidence. There are also procedural differences relating to the
role of the judge in the trial process. In civil-law system trials using the
inquisitorial process, the role of the judge is elevated—the judge assumes the
role of principal interrogator of witnesses, resulting in a concomitant derogation
of the role of lawyers during the trial. Conversely, in the common-law system
the role of the judge as the manager of the trial (and “referee” of the lawyers
acting in an adversary role) is secondary to that of the lawyers, who are the
prime players in the process, introducing evidence and interrogating witnesses.
The contrasting roles played by the judge in the trial process of the two
systems has also resulted in a difference in judicial attitudes. Judges in the civil-
law systems view themselves less as being in the business of creating law than
as mere appliers of the law (i.e., a more technical, less active role in the de-
velopment of the law than their common-law counterparts’). In civil-law
countries, the judge merely applies the applicable code provisions to a case, with
little opportunity for judicial creativity and often with the assistance of legal
scholars and legal scholarship. The common-law judge, in contrast, is able to
search creatively for an answer to a question or issue among many potentially
applicable judicial precedents.
There is a distinct difference in the two systems in the manner in which
judges are selected and trained and in their legal education. In the civil-law
tradition the judiciary is usually part of the civil service of the country—a recent
law graduate selects the judiciary as a career and then follows a prescribed
career path, first attending a special training institution for judges, and then
acting as a judge in a particular geographical area and particular court system as
assigned by the institutional body responsible for the administration of the

judicial branch, often the Ministry of Justice. In contrast, common-law judges
are generally selected as part of the political process for a specific judicial post
that they hold for life or for a specified term, with no system of advancement to
higher courts as a reward for service.
Finally, the tradition of legal training is different in the two systems. In civil-
law countries the study of law at a faculty of law follows graduation from high
school, with no intermediate education in the liberal arts or other fields of
learning, and with little or no exposure to subjects taught in other departments of
a university. Thus a student at a faculty of law in a civil-law country rarely has a
baccalaureate degree. In contrast, in a common-law country, the study of law is
almost always post-graduate. The law student is exposed to other disciplines
prior to matriculation in the law school, a situation that has perhaps led to a
greater social consciousness among judges and lawyers about the purposes and
functions of law and its application—and a greater openness and ability to
confront new situations—than exists among their counterparts in civil-law
countries.
Conclusion
Two quotations from two comparative legal treatises should serve to highlight
the fundamental differences between the two systems and their two distinct
approaches to the law. The first is a commentary on the philosophical posture of
common-law lawyers. The second is an observation about legal education in a
civil-law system (Brazil).
In the common-law system,
[t]he common law lawyer, by and large, simply doesn’t care whether
such a [comprehensive, logical, legal] system exists or not. He is
busy deciding cases, with the aid of judicial precedent and with or
without the aid of statutory enactment of rules in particular cases. If
from this process scholars can begin to see bits and pieces of a
system emerging, he is interested in it as a potentially useful tool; but
he does not regard the discovery or the development of such a
complete and logical system as essential or even important in his
continuing task of achieving justice in an infinite number and variety
of individual cases.14
In contrast, in a civil-law country, law students are taught
[t]hat law is a science, and that the task of the legal scientist is to
analyze and elaborate principles which can be derived from a careful
study of positive legislation into a harmonious systematic structure.
14. Woodfin L. Butte, Stare Decisis, Doctrine, and Jurisprudence in Mexico and Elsewhere, in
The Role of Judicial Decisions and Doctrine in Civil Law and in Mixed Jurisdictions 315 (Joseph
Dainow ed. 1974).

The components of this system are believed to be purely legal, a set
of ultimate truths related by rigorous deductive logic. Hence, the
legal scientist’s inquiry is almost exclusively directed towards the
legal norm. Though lip service may be paid towards the relevance or
utility of facts derived from non-legal disciplines, such as
anthropology, sociology, political science, or economics, it is hard for
the legal scientist to escape the feeling that consideration of non-legal
facts detracts from his search for absolute principles and the true
nature of legal institutions.15
As indicated earlier, the distinctions between the two systems have blurred.
Common-law countries are adopting some of the characteristics of the civil-law
system, while civil-law countries are incorporating features of the common-law
tradition into their legal systems. But significant differences remain and are
likely to remain, as a result of the history and perceptions about the nature and
purpose of law underlying each, one originating over 2,000 years ago and the
other emerging in the twelfth century.
15. Merryman & Clark, supra note 6, at 389.

Bibliography
Jean Louis Bergel, Principal Features and Methods of Codification, 48 La. L.

Rev. 1073 (1988)
Joseph Dainow, The Civil Law and the Common Law: Some Points of Com-
parison, 15 Am. J. Comp. Law 419 (1966–1967)
Rene David & John E. C. Brierly, Major Legal Systems in the World Today
(1985)
John P. Dawson, Oracles of the Law (1968)
John D. M. Derrett, An Introduction to Legal Systems (1968)
Gaius, Institutes (William M. Gordon & Olivia F. Robinson trans., 1988)
Mary Ann Glendon et al., Comparative Legal Traditions (1982)
Konstantinos D. Kerameus, A Civilian Lawyer Looks at Common-Law Pro-
cedure, 47 La. L. Rev. 493 (1987)
Hein Kotz, Taking Civil Codes Less Seriously, 50 Mod. L. Rev. 1 (1987)
John H. Merryman, The Civil Law Tradition (2d ed. 1985)
John H. Merryman & David S. Clark, Comparative Law: Western European and
Latin American Legal Systems (1976)
Olivia F. Robinson et al., An Introduction to European Legal History (2d ed.
1987)
Martin M. Shapiro, Courts: A Comparative and Political Analysis (1981)
Arthur T. von Mehren, Law in the United States: A General and Comparative
View (1988)
Arthur T. von Mehren & James R. Gordley, The Civil Law System (2d ed.
1977)
41
Appendix A
Excerpts from the Institutes of Gaius

Reproduced from The Institutes of Gaius, translated with an introduction by William M.
Gordon & Olivia F. Robinson (1988), with permission of the publishers, Gerald
Duckworth and Company Ltd., London.
THE INSTITUTES OF GAIUS—FOUR COMMENTARIES

(asterisks indicate illegible letters in original text)
Law and Its Sources
FROM BOOK ONE
[I On state* and natural law*] 1. All peoples who are governed by laws and
customs use law which is partly theirs alone and partly shared by all mankind.
The law which each people makes for itself is special to itself. It is called ‘state
law,’ the law peculiar to that state. But the law which natural reason makes for
all mankind is applied in the same way everywhere. It is called ‘the law of all
peoples’* because it is common to every nation. The law of the Roman people is
also partly its own and partly common to all mankind. Which parts are which we
will explain below. 2. The laws of the Roman people are based upon acts*,
plebeian statutes*, resolutions of the Senate*, imperial enactments*, edicts* of
those having the right to issue them, and answers given by jurists*. 3. An act is
law which the people decide and enact. A plebeian statute is law which the
plebeians* decide and enact. Plebeians and people differ in that the people is the
whole citizen body, including the patricians*; but the plebeians are the citizens
without the patricians. This is why formerly the patricians used to say that they
were not bound by plebeian statutes, which were made without their authoriza-
tion. Subsequently, however, the Hortensian Act was passed providing that
plebeian statutes should bind the whole people; and so they were placed on the
same level as acts. 4. A resolution of the Senate is law decided and enacted by
the Senate; this also has the status of an act, although this point has been
questioned. 5. An imperial enactment is law which the Emperor enacts in a
decree, edict or letter. It has never been doubted that it has the status of an act,
since it is by means of an act that the Emperor himself assumes his imperial
43
authority. 6. The magistrates of the Roman people have the right to issue edicts.
The right is found most fully in the edicts of the two Praetors, Urban* and
Peregrine* (whose jurisdiction in the provinces* is exercised by provincial
governors) and again in the edicts of the curule aediles (whose jurisdiction in the
provinces of the Roman people is exercised by quaestors—quaestors are never
posted to the Imperial provinces, and on that account this edict is not published
in those provinces). 7. Juristic answers are the opinions and advice of those
entrusted with the task of building up the law. If the opinions of all of them
agree on a point, what they thus hold has the status of an act; if, however, they
disagree, a judge* may follow which opinion he wishes. This is made known in
a written reply* of the Emperor* Hadrian.
[II On the division of law] 8. All our law is about persons, things or actions.
We turn to persons first.
[III On status] 9. The main classification in the law of persons is this: all men
are either free or slaves. 10. Again, among free men, some are free-born while
others are freed*. 11. Free-born are those who were born free; freedmen, those
who have been manumitted* from lawful slavery. 12. Again, there are three
classes of freedmen; for they are either Roman citizens, or Latins* or in the
category of capitulated aliens.
....
FROM BOOK THREE

215. The second section of the [Aquilan] Act provides an action against an
additional stipulator who grants a verbal release of a debt in fraud of the
stipulator, and it gives an action for the value in money of what is involved. 216.
Obviously an action in respect of loss was introduced by this section of the Act
as well. But the provision was unnecessary because the action on mandate
would cover the case; except that under the Act an action lies for double
damages against anyone who denies liability.
217. The third section provides for all other loss. If someone wounds a slave
or four-footed stock, or if he wounds or kills a quadruped not classed as stock,
such as a dog or a wild beast, for instance a bear or a lion, an action lies under
this section. This section gives a remedy for loss wrongfully caused to other
animals and to all inanimate things. For if anything is burned or damaged or
broken, an action is established under this section. The word ‘damaged’—the
Latin verb ‘rumpere’—could have covered all these cases, since it is construed
to include every kind of spoiling, in Latin ‘corrumpere.’ That word covers not
only burning, damaging or breaking but also tearing, squashing, spilling, and
every sort of corruption or ruining or making worse. 218. Under this section the
person causing loss is obliged to pay the value of the thing in the nearest thirty
days, not the year. It is true that the word ‘highest’ is not inserted; and so some

people thought that the judge was free to make his valuation as at the time in the
thirty days when the thing was at its highest or when it stood lower. But Sabinus
held that the valuation was to be made just as though the word ‘highest’ had
been included. In his view the legislator was content to use the word just in the
first section. 219. The conclusion was also reached that the statutory action lies
only where someone causes loss by his bodily force. Where people cause loss in
other ways actions are given based on the policy of the statute. These policy
actions are given against one who shuts up another’s slave or animal and it dies
of starvation, or drives a draught animal so hard that it is injured, or induces
another’s slave to climb up a tree or go down a well so that in climbing up or
down he falls and is killed or injured. But against this, suppose someone pushes
another’s slave from a bridge or river-bank into the river and the slave drowns.
Here also it is easy to conclude from the fact that he pushed him in, that he has
caused the loss by his bodily force.
220. Now, contempt is committed not only when someone is struck with a
fist or with clubs, or even flogged, but also when a vocal attack is made on him,
when his goods are advertised for sale as a debtor’s by someone who knows he
owes him nothing, when someone writes a defamatory book or poem about
someone, or when someone harasses a lady or a youth; and finally in many other
ways. 221. Now, we can be the victim of contempt not only in our own person
but also through our children, if they are still within paternal power, and also
through our wives, even if they are not in marital subordination to us. And so,
for instance, if you commit a contempt against my daughter, who is married to
Titius, an action can be brought against you not only for my daughter herself but
also for both myself and Titius. 222. The law holds that no contempt can be
committed against a slave, but that the delict is committed against the owner
through the slave. But we do not suffer contempt in quite the same way as
through our wives and children but only where something more gross occurs,
manifestly done in contempt of the owner, for example, where one person flogs
another’s slave. There is a pattern formula* in the Edict for that. There is no
pattern formula for the case where someone abuses a slave vocally or strikes
him with a fist, nor is one readily given on application to the praetor.
223. Under the Twelve Tables the penalty for this delict was, for a damaged
limb, retaliation; for a broken or bruised bone, on the other hand, it was 300
‘asses’ if a free man’s bone had been broken but 150 if it was a slave’s; for all
other contempts, on the other hand, the penalty established was twenty-five
‘asses.’ And in those times of great poverty it seemed that these pecuniary
penalties were satisfactory enough. 224. But now the law is different. The
praetor allows us to put our own value on the contempt and the judge*
condemns either for our valuation or for such lesser sum as seems right to him.
But as the practice is for the praetor to set the value of an aggravated contempt
himself, if he at the same time settles the amount of the defender’s special
Appendix A 45
undertaking* for his appearance in court, we put that same sum as the upper
limit in our formula. Although the judge can go lower, out of respect for the
praetor’s authority he will generally not be so bold as to reduce the judgment
below that figure. 225. Contempt, however, can be aggravated: in conduct, as
where someone is wounded by another or flogged or struck with clubs; in place,
as where he is subjected to a contempt in the theatre or a city square; in person,
as where a magistrate suffers a contempt, or a senator at the hands of a common
person.

Appendix B
Excerpts from the French Code

Reproduced from The Civil Law System, An Introduction to the Comparative Study of
Law, by Arthur Taylor von Mehren & James Russell Gordley (1977), with permission
from the publisher, Little, Brown and Company, Boston.
Provisions of the Code Relating to Contractual Obligations

A. General Provisions (Articles 1101–1369)
Book III. Of the Different Ways in Which Property Rights Can Be Acquired
Title III. Of Contracts and of Obligations Based on Conventions in General
CHAPTER 1. PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS
Art. 1101. A contract is an agreement by which one or more persons obligate
themselves to one or more other persons to give, or to do or not to do,
something.
Art. 1102. A contract is synallagmatic or bilateral when the contracting
parties assume obligations reciprocally, each to the other.
Art. 1103. It is unilateral when one or more persons are obligated to one or
more other persons, and no obligation rests on the latter.
Art. 1104. It is commutative when each party binds himself to give or to do
something that is considered the equivalent of what the other party gives him or
does for him.
When the equivalent for each of the parties consists in a chance of gain or
loss dependent upon an uncertain event, the contract is aleatory.
Art. 1105. A contract of benevolence is one in which one party procures a
purely gratuitous advantage for the other.
Art. 1106. An onerous contract obliges each party to give or to do something.
Art. 1107. All contracts, regardless of whether they have a special name, are
subject to the general rules set out in this title.
The special rules governing particular contracts are to be found under the
titles dealing with each of them; the special rules governing commercial
contracts are set out in the laws relating to commerce.
47
CHAPTER 2. OF THE CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL TO THE
VALIDITY OF THE CONVENTIONS
Art. 1108. Four conditions are essential to the validity of an agreement:
the consent of the party who binds himself;
his capacity to contract;
a definite object which forms the subject matter of the agreement;
a licit cause for the obligation.
Section 1. Of Consent
Art. 1109. There is no valid consent if consent was only given because of
error, was extorted by force or procured by fraud.
Art. 1110. Error is not a ground for nullity of a convention unless it goes to
the very substance of the thing forming the object of the contract.
Error is not a ground for nullity when it only goes to the person with whom
one intended to contract unless the identity of the person was a principal reason
for the convention.
Art. 1111. The use of force against a person who entered into the obligation
is a ground for setting the contract aside, even if the force is exerted by a person
other than the one for whose benefit the convention was concluded.
Art. 1112. Force is exerted when the pressure is of such nature as to affect a
reasonable person and cause him to fear that his body or fortune is menaced by a
considerable and present evil. The age, sex, and background of the persons in
question are to be taken into account.
Art. 1113. Force is a ground for setting the contract aside when pressure is
exerted against the contracting party, or against his husband or wife, or against
his descendants or ancestors.
Art. 1114. Respect for one’s father, mother, or other ancestor, where no force
is exerted, is not a ground for setting a contract aside.
Art. 1115. A contract can no longer be set aside because of force if, after the
pressure ceased, the contract was approved, either expressly or tacitly, or if the
time fixed by law for restitution has been allowed to pass.
Art. 1116. Fraud is a ground for setting a convention aside when one party
employs an artifice such that the other party clearly would not have entered the
contract had it not been employed.
Fraud cannot be presumed, it must be proved.
Art. 1117. A convention entered into because of mistake, force, or fraud is
not void; instead an action lies to void the contract or for rescission, in the cases
and in the manner explained in Section 7 of Chapter 5 of this Title.
Art. 1118. Lesion vitiates certain, but not all, contracts and these only with
respect to certain persons, as is explained in the appropriate section.

Art. 1119. As a general rule, a person cannot obligate himself, nor stipulate in
his own name, except for himself.
Art. 1120. However, a person may become obligated for the conduct of
another by undertaking that the other shall do something, with the ensuing
obligation to pay an indemnity if this other person refuses to undertake such an
obligation.
Art. 1121. A person can also stipulate for the benefit of a third party when
this is the condition of a stipulation that one makes for his own benefit or of a
donation one makes to another. A person who has made such a stipulation
cannot revoke it if the third party has declared that he desires to benefit from it.
Art. 1122. A person is considered to have stipulated for himself, for his heirs,
and for those deriving rights from him unless the contrary is expressed or results
from the nature of the agreement.
Section 2. Of the Capacity of Contracting Parties
Art. 1123. Any person can contract, unless the law declares that he lacks
capacity.
Art. 1124. (Law No. 68-5 of 3 January 1968.) The following do not have
capacity:
unemancipated minors;
those adults protected under the provisions of article 488 of the civil
code.
Art. 1125 . (Law No. 68-5 of 3 January 1968.) A person having capacity to
enter into an agreement cannot attack the agreement on the ground that it was
concluded with a minor or a person under a legal disability.
Art. 1125-1. (Law No. 68-5 of 3 January 1968.) One employed in an in-
stitution which provides lodging for the elderly or dispenses psychiatric services
may not, on pain of invalidity, acquire the goods or rights of an inmate or lease
the house occupied by the inmate prior to admission without receipt of special
legal authorization to do so.
This article also applies to the spouse, descendants, and ancestors of persons
falling within the prohibition.
Section 3. Of the Object and the Subject Matter of Contracts
Art. 1126. The object of every contract is a thing that a party binds himself to
give, or that a party binds himself to do or not to do.
Art. 1127 . The use or the possession of a thing, as well as the thing itself, can
be the object of a contract.
Art. 1128. Only things subject to commercial exchange can be the object of
an agreement.
Appendix B 49
Art. 1129. The object of an obligation must be a thing that is specified at least
as to its species.
The amount can be uncertain, so long as it can be determined.
Art. 1130. Things not yet in existence can be the object of an obligation.
However, one cannot renounce a succession that has not yet been opened, nor
make any stipulation with respect to such succession even if the consent of the
person whose succession is in question is obtained.
Section 4. Of Cause
Art. 1131. An obligation without cause or one based on a false or an illicit
cause cannot have any effect.
Art. 1132. An agreement is valid although its cause has not been expressed.
Art. 1133. A cause is illicit when it is prohibited by law or when it is contrary
to good morals or to the ordre public.
CHAPTER 3. OF THE EFFECTS OF OBLIGATIONS
Section 1. General Provisions

Art. 1134. Agreements lawfully formed take the place of law for those who
have made them.
They cannot be revoked except by mutual consent or on grounds allowed by
law.
They must be performed in good faith.
Art. 1135. Agreements obligate a party, not only as to what is expressly
undertaken, but also as to all the consequences which equity, custom or rules of
law give the obligation according to its nature.
Section 2. Of the Obligation to Give
Art. 1136. The obligation to give carries with it the obligation to deliver the
thing and to preserve it until delivery, under penalty of damages to be assessed
against the obligee.
Art. 1137. The obligation to see to it that something is preserved, regardless
of whether the agreement is for the advantage of one of the parties or for their
common advantage, requires the person so obligated to use the care of a
reasonable man [literally, of a good father of a family].
The scope of this obligation varies for certain contracts whose effects in this
connection are explained under the titles relating to them.
Art. 1138. The obligation to deliver a thing is completed by the mere consent
of the contracting parties.
It constitutes the obligee owner and places the thing at his risk from the time
it should have been delivered, even if a physical delivery has not taken place,

unless the obligor is in default with respect to delivery; in which case the thing
remains at the risk of the obligor.
Art. 1139. An obligor is put in default either by a summons, by an equivalent
instrument, or by the effect of the agreement when it provides that the obligor
shall be in default without any notice and by the simple expiration of a period of
time.
Art. 1140. The effects of obligations to give or to deliver realty are regulated
in the titles, Of Sales and Of Privileges and Mortgages.
Art. 1141. If one is obliged to give or to deliver an object which is movable
property to two persons in succession, the person put in actual possession is
preferred and remains the owner even though his title is later in date, assuming
of course the possession is in good faith.
Section 3. Of the Obligation To Do or Not To Do
Art. 1142. Every obligation to do or not to do resolves itself, in case of
nonperformance on the part of the obligor, in damages.
Art. 1143. Nevertheless, an obligee has the right to demand that what has
been done in violation of the agreement be rectified and he can obtain
authorization to rectify it himself at the obligor’s expense, without prejudice to
payment of damages, if appropriate.
Art. 1144. In case of nonperformance, an obligee may also be authorized to
carry out the obligation himself at the obligor’s expense.
Art. 1145. If the obligation is to refrain from doing something, a person in
violation owes damages by the fact alone of the violation.
Section 4. Of Damages Resulting from the Nonperformance of Obligations
Art. 1146. Damages are not due unless the obligor is in default in per-
formance of his obligation, except, nevertheless, when the thing which the
obligor had undertaken to give or to do was not to be given or done before a
certain time, which he has allowed to pass.
Art. 1147. An obligor shall be ordered to pay damages for nonperformance of
the obligation or for delay in performing it, whenever he fails to establish that
nonperformance is due to a foreign cause that cannot be imputed to him,
provided, moreover, that there is no bad faith on his part.
Art. 1148. No damages shall be due when the obligor was prevented from
giving or doing what he had bound himself to do, or was caused to do what he
was not to do by irresistible force or a fortuitous event.
Art. 1149. The damages due the obligee are ordinarily for the loss he has
suffered and the gain of which he has been deprived, subject to the exceptions
and modifications hereinafter set forth.
Appendix B 51
Art. 1150. An obligor is only liable for damages that were foreseen or could
have been foreseen at the time of contracting, unless his own willful misconduct
has prevented performance of the obligation.
Art. 1151. Even if the nonperformance of the contract is brought about by the
obligor’s willful misconduct, the damages given for the loss suffered by the
obligee and for the profit he lost cannot include items not a direct and immediate
consequence of the nonperformance of the agreement.
Art. 1152. When the agreement provides that the party who fails to perform
shall pay a certain amount as damages, a larger or smaller amount cannot be
awarded to the other party.
(Law No. 75-597 of 9 July 1975.) However, the judge may reduce or increase
the penalty that has been agreed upon, if it is plainly excessive or ridiculously
low. No effect will be given to an agreement to the contrary.
Art. 1153. (Law No. 75-619 of 11 July 1975.) In obligations consisting in the
payment of a certain sum, the damages resulting from delay in performing are
limited to interest at the legal rate subject to the special rules applying to
commerce and to suretyships.
(Ordinance No. 59-148 of 7 January 1959.) Such damages are due without
the obligee’s being required to prove any loss.
(Law No. 75-619 of 11 July 1975.) They are only due from the day of the
demand for payment, except in those cases in which the law itself causes them
to run.
(Law of 7 April 1900.) An obligee to whom a procrastinating obligor by his
bad faith has caused a loss independent of the delay, may obtain damages in
addition to the amount allowed for the delay in payment.
Section 5. Of the Interpretation of Conventions
Art. 1156. In interpreting agreements, one ought to seek the common
intention of the contracting parties instead of adhering to the literal meaning of
the words.
Art. 1157. When a provision can have two meanings, the interpretation that
will render it effective is to be preferred over an interpretation that would
deprive it of all effect.
Art. 1158. Terms that can have two meanings are to be taken in the sense
most appropriate for the subject matter of the contract.
Art. 1159. Ambiguous provisions are to be interpreted in accordance with the
usage of the region in which the contract is concluded.
Art. 1160 . Customary clauses are to be read into contracts although they have
not been expressly included.

Art. 1161. Each provision of an agreement is to be interpreted as a part of the
whole contract.
Art. 1162. In case of doubt, the agreement is to be interpreted against the
person who stipulated and in favor of the party assuming the obligation.
Art. 1163. Regardless of how general the terms are, in which an agreement is
set out, it only comprehends those things as to which it appears the parties
intended to contract.
Art. 1164. When in a contract a case is set out to illustrate the obligation, it is
not to be assumed that the parties intended that the obligation not receive the
extension to other cases that the law would normally give it.
Section 6. Of the Effects of Conventions with Respect to Third Parties
Art. 1165. Conventions have effects only among the contracting parties, they
do not affect third parties adversely, nor do they benefit such parties except in
the case contemplated by Article 1121.
Art. 1166. However, creditors can exercise all the rights and actions be-
longing to their debtors, with the exception of those rights and actions that are
strictly personal.
Art. 1167. They can also, in their own name, attack acts done by their debtors
in fraud of their rights.
(Law No. 65-570 of 13 July 1965.) However, with respect to the rights
established in the titles, Of Succession and Of the Marriage Contract and the
Respective Rights of Spouses, creditors must conform to the rules set out in these
titles.
Appendix B 53
Appendix C
Excerpts from the German Code

Reproduced from The Civil Law System, An Introduction to the Comparative Study of
Law, by Arthur Taylor von Mehren & James Russell Gordley (1977), with permission
from the publisher, Little, Brown and Company, Boston.
Book V. Law of Inheritance
SECTION 2. Provisions of the Code Relating to Contractual Obligations

A. Provisions Contained in Book I, General Principles
(Sections 116–157)
Book I. General Principles

[Sections 116–157, comprising Titles 2 and 3 of Section III, Juristic Acts, of this
Book are given here.]
TITLE 2. DECLARATION OF INTENTION
§ 116. A declaration of intention is not void when declarant has made a secret of
the fact that he does not will what he has declared. The declaration is void if
made to a person who is aware of such a mental reservation.
§ 117. If a declaration of intention is made only in pretense, with the connivance
of the person to whom it is made, the declaration is void.
If another juristic act is concealed under a pretended transaction, the
provisions applicable to concealed juristic acts apply.
§ 118. A declaration of intention, not seriously intended, that is made in the
expectation that it will be understood not to be seriously intended, is void.
§ 119. A person who, when making a declaration of intention, was under a
mistake as to its purport or did not intend to make a declaration of that purport at
all, may avoid the declaration if it appears that he would not have made it with
knowledge of the state of affairs and with intelligent appreciation of the case.
55
A mistake concerning any characteristics of the person or thing that are
reached in ordinary dealings as essential is also deemed to be a mistake con-
cerning the purport of the declaration.
§ 120. A declaration of intention that has been incorrectly transmitted by the
person or institution employed for its transmission may be avoided under the
same conditions as a declaration of intention voidable for mistake under § 119.
§ 121. In the cases provided for by §§ 119 and 120 avoidance must be sought
promptly, without culpable delay after the person entitled to avoid has obtained
knowledge of the grounds for avoidance. An avoidance as against a person who
is not present is deemed to have been effected in due time if the avoidance has
been forwarded without delay.
The right of avoidance is barred if thirty years have elapsed since the making
of the declaration of intention.
§ 122. If a declaration of intention given to another person is void under § 118
or voidable under §§ 119 and 120, the declarant shall compensate him or any
third party for any damage that the other or the third party has sustained by
relying upon the validity of the declaration; the damages, nevertheless, shall not
exceed the value of the interest that the other or the third party has in the validity
of the declaration.
Compensation need not be made if the person injured knew of the ground on
which the declaration was void or voidable or should have known, that is, would
have known but for his own negligence.
§ 123. A person who has been induced to make a declaration of intention by
fraud or unlawfully by force may avoid the declaration.
If a third party was guilty of the fraud, a declaration made to another may be
avoided only if the latter knew or ought to have known of the fraud. Insofar as a
person, other than the one to whom the declaration was made, has acquired a
right directly through the declaration, the declaration may be avoided as against
him if he knew or ought to have known of the fraud.
§ 124. A declaration of intention under § 123 may only be avoided within the
period of one year.
The period begins to run, in case of fraud, from the moment at which the
person entitled to avoid discovers the fraud; in the case of threats, from the
moment at which the coercion ceases. The provisions of § 203, par. 2 and §§
206 and 207, applicable to prescription, apply as nearly as may be to the running
of this period.
The right of avoidance is barred if thirty years have elapsed since the making
of the declaration of intention.
§ 125. A juristic act that is not in the form prescribed by law is void. A juristic
act which is not in the form prescribed by another juristic act is void when a
doubt arises as to its effects.

§ 126. If writing is prescribed by law, the document must be signed by the
maker in his own name with his own hand or by his mark certified by a court or
notary.
In the case of a contract, the signatures of the parties must be made on the
same document. If several identical copies of the contract are drawn up, it is
sufficient if each party signs the copy intended for the other party.
Notarial authentication may be substituted for writing.
§ 127. The provisions of § 126 also apply, in case of doubt, to writing in a form
prescribed by juristic act. Unless a contrary intention appears, it is sufficient if
there has been a telegraphic transmission or, in the case of a contract, an
exchange of letters; if such a form is selected, authentication in accordance with
§ 126 may be subsequently required.
§ 127a. The parties to a settlement in court may record their declarations in a
protocol pursuant to the Code of Civil Procedure as a substitute for notarial
authentication.
§ 128. If notarial authentication of a contract is prescribed by law, it is sufficient
if first the offer and later the acceptance of the offer be authenticated by a
notary.
§ 129. If public certification of a declaration is prescribed by law, the declaration
must be drawn up in writing and the signature of the declarant be certified by a
notary. If the declaration is subscribed by the maker with his mark, the
certification of the mark prescribed in § 126, par. 1, is necessary and sufficient.
Notarial authentication of the declaration may be substituted for the public
certification.
§ 130. A declaration of intention to another, if it is made to another in his
absence, is effective at the moment when it reaches him. It does not become
effective if a revocation reaches him previously or simultaneously.
The effectiveness of the declaration is not affected by the subsequent death or
incapacity of the declarant.
These provisions apply even if the declaration of intention is made to a public
authority.
§ 131. If a declaration of intention is made to a person who lacks capacity, it
does not become effective before it reaches his statutory agent.
The same rule applies if the declaration of intention is made to a person of
limited capacity. If, however, the declaration is only to the legal advantage of
the person of limited capacity, or if the statutory agent has given his approval,
the declaration becomes effective at the moment when it reaches the person of
limited capacity.
Appendix C 57
§ 132. A declaration of intention is also deemed to have become effective if it
has been delivered through the instrumentality of an executive officer of a court.
The delivery is made according to the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure.
If, without negligence, the declarant is in ignorance of the identity of a person
to whom the declaration must be made, or if the residence of this person is
unknown, the delivery may be effected according to the provisions of the Code
of Civil Procedure relating to the public service of a summons. In the former
case the Amtsgericht competent to authorize the summons is the one in whose
district the declarant has his domicile, or, if he has no domestic domicile, his
residence; in the latter case, the Amtsgericht in whose district the person to
whom delivery is required to be made last had his domicile, or, if he had no
domestic domicile, last had his residence.
§ 133. In the interpretation of a declaration of intention the true intention is to be
sought rather than the literal meaning of the expression.
§ 134. A juristic act which is contrary to a statutory prohibition is void, unless a
contrary intention appears from the statute.
§ 135. If the disposition of an object is contrary to a statutory prohibition against
alienation that aims only at the protection of particular persons, the disposition is
inoperative only as to these persons. A disposition effected by means of
compulsory execution or distraint is equivalent to a contractual disposition.
The provisions in favor of those who derive rights from a person without title
apply as nearly as may be.
§ 136. A prohibition against alienation that is issued by a court or by any other
competent authority is equivalent to a statutory prohibition against alienation of
the kind specified in § 135.
§ 137. The right to dispose of an alienable right may not be excluded or limited
by juristic act. The validity of an obligation not to dispose of such a right is not
affected by this provision.
§ 138. A juristic act that is contra bonos mores is void.
A juristic act is also void when a person takes advantage of the distressed
situation, inexperience, lack of judgmental ability, or grave weakness of will of
another to obtain the grant, or promise of pecuniary advantages for himself or a
third party which are obviously disproportionate to the performance given in
return.[]
§ 139. If part of a juristic act is void, the whole juristic act is void, unless it is to
be presumed that it would also have been entered into if the void part had been
omitted.
§ 140. If a void juristic act satisfied the requirements of a different juristic act,
the latter is valid, if it can be presumed that the parties, knowing of the invalidity
of the act, would have so intended.

§ 141. If a void juristic act is confirmed by the person who entered into it, the
confirmation is deemed to be a renewed undertaking.
If a void contract is confirmed by the parties, they are mutually bound, in
case of doubt, to do what they would have been found to do if the contract had
been valid from the beginning.
§ 142. If a voidable juristic act is avoided, it is deemed to have been void from
the beginning.
If a person knew or ought to have known of the voidability, and the act is
avoided, he is deemed to have known that the juristic act was void.
§ 143. The avoidance is effected by declaration to the party subject to
avoidance.
The party subject to avoidance is, in the case of a contract, the other party; in
the case provided for by § 1123, par. 2, sentence 2, the person who has acquired
a right directly through the contract.
In the case of a unilateral juristic act which must be entered into with another
person, that other person is the party subject to avoidance. The same rule applies
in the case of a juristic act entered into with either another person or with a
public authority, even though the original act was entered into with the
authority.
In the case of a unilateral juristic act of any other kind, the person who has
acquired a legal advantage directly founded upon the juristic act is the party
subject to avoidance. However, if the declaration of intention was required to be
made to a public authority, the avoidance may be effected by a declaration to the
authority; the authority should communicate the avoidance to those persons who
have been directly affected by the juristic act.
§ 144. If a voidable juristic act is confirmed by the person entitled to avoid, it
ceases to be voidable.
The confirmation need not be in the form prescribed for the juristic act.
TITLE 3. CONTRACT
§ 145. If a person offers to conclude a contract with another, he is bound by the

offer, unless he has stated that he is not bound.
§ 146. An offer ceases to be binding if it is declined to the offeror, or if it is not
accepted in due time according to §§ 147 to 149.
§ 147. An offer made to a person who is present may be accepted only there and
then. This applies also to an offer made by one person to another on the
telephone.
An offer made to a person who is not present may be accepted only within
the time the offeror may expect to receive an answer under ordinary
circumstances.
Appendix C 59
§ 148. If the offeror has fixed a period of time for acceptance of the offer, the
acceptance may take place only within that period.
§ 149. If an acceptance arrives late, though it has been transmitted to the offeror
in such manner that it would ordinarily have arrived in due time, and the offeror
knows or should know it has been so transmitted, the offeror shall promptly
notify the acceptor of the delay, unless he has already been notified. If the
offeror delays in giving such notice, the acceptance is deemed not to have been
late.
§ 150. If the acceptance of an offer arrives late, it is deemed to be a new offer.
An acceptance with amplifications, limitations, or other alterations is deemed
to be a refusal coupled with a new offer.
§ 151. A contract is concluded by the acceptance of an offer, although the
acceptance is not communicated to the offeror, if such a communication is not to
be expected according to ordinary usage, or if the offeror has waived it. The
moment at which the offer ceases to be binding is determined according to the
intention of the offeror to be inferred from the offer or the circumstances.
§ 152. If a contract is notarially authenticated and the parties are not simul-
taneously present, the contract is, unless otherwise provided, concluded upon
authentication of the acceptance as provided for in § 128. The provision of §
151, sentence 2, applies.
§ 153. The conclusion of a contract is not prevented by the death or incapacity,
prior to acceptance, of the offeror, unless the intention of the offeror appears to
have been otherwise.
§ 154. So long as the parties have not agreed upon all points of a contract upon
which agreement is essential, according to the declaration of even one party, the
contract is, in case of doubt, not concluded. An understanding concerning
particular points is not binding, even if they have been noted down.
If authentication of the contemplated contract has been agreed upon, in case
of doubt the contract is not concluded until the authentication has taken place.
§ 155. If the parties to a contract that they regard as concluded have not agreed
upon a point which they should have settled, their agreement is valid if it
appears they would have contracted even without agreement on this point.
§ 156. At an auction a contract is not concluded until the hammer falls. A bid
ceases to be binding if a higher bid is made, or the auction is closed before the
hammer falls.
§ 157. Contracts shall be interpreted according to the requirements of good faith,
ordinary usage being taken into consideration.

Appendix D
Comparison of a Similar Issue of Law

Treated by a French Court and a German Court
Cases are reproduced from Comparative Law: Western European and Latin American
Systems, by John Henry Merryman & David S. Clark (1978), with permission from the
publisher, The Michie Company, Charlottesville, Va.
The issue treated here by a French court and a German court relates to the joint
and several liability of multiple persons whose actions may have caused damage
to an individual.
LITZINGER v. KINTZLER
Supreme Court of France (Civil Chamber, 2d Division)
Decision of June 5, 1957
1957 D.S. Jur. 493
The Court:—Joinder of the pourvois Nos. 1034 Civ. 54 and 1143 Civ. 54 for
the reason of their connection with one another.
For the sole reason as to all parts of each of the two
pourvois:—Whereas it follows from the appealed decision,
affirming the decision of the lower court (Dijon, March 3,
1954), that on January 6, 1952, Nicolas, Roger, Cudel,
Litzinger, Chauffaut Paul, Chauffaut Jean, and Thiriet had
been hunting deer and that Kintzler was a member of the
party, that about 4 o’clock the hunting activity had ceased and,
that, while the latter had withdrawn from the hunt in order to
get back to his home, the other seven hunters agreed upon the
firing of a salute to celebrate the end of the hunt, and that
Kintzler, being close by, was hit by a shot in his right eye
which inflicted upon him an injury depriving him almost
completely of the use of that organ; and that it has been stated
by one of them that the seven members fired simultaneously,
and, according to another of them, the shots went off “like the
burst of a machine gun”;—Whereas, on the action against
61
these hunters brought by the victim on the double ground of
the articles 1382 and 1384, subsec. 1, civil code, the Court of
Appeals laid down, finding them liable jointly and severally,
that “the real cause of the accident was the concerted action of
the seven hunters engaging in a shooting which did not
constitute a normal part of the hunt, under circumstances
demonstrating negligence and carelessness imputable to all of
them”;—Whereas, thus joint and several liability of these
seven defendants has been established sufficiently and justly,
and that it is in no way necessary, for the purpose of
supporting evidence, to identify from them the originator of
the shot which caused the damage; that, indeed, several
persons, by engaging themselves in a concerted action, or
acting spontaneously under mutual excitement, may involve
themselves in a manifestation for which each ought to carry
the liability for consequential damage, whether the damage is
the effect of a single act in which all have taken part, or of a
number of connected acts so coherent as to their concept and
performance that they cannot be separated one from
another;—Whereas, because of their superfluous character, it
is irrelevant that the other reasons, based upon the alleged
liability at law for a person with a thing under his guard, are
erroneous and open to proper criticism of the pourvois, since
all the same the appealed decision is legally justified.
For these reasons, reject the “pourvois.”
Mr. Camboulives, acting president—Mr. Vidal, rapporteur—Mr. Lemoine,

avocat général—Messrs. Morillot, Alcock and Brouchot, counsel
S.E. v. SCH.
Supreme Court of Germany (Civil Chamber, 6th Division)
Decision of November 15, 1960
33 BGHZ 286 (1961)
1. District Court of Bamberg

2. Court of Appeals of Bamberg
On the night of December 11, the plaintiff was struck and

thrown onto the highway by a truck which he was trying to
stop, and there he remained lying. About one o’clock he was
run over and injured by the defendant, who was driving an

American automobile. It is not known whether or not the
plaintiff was run over by trucks or cars other than that car
driven by the defendant. This might have been the case,
particularly with one car that passed by soon after the
American car. The plaintiff’s right leg was seriously broken
and injured below the knee, and the lower part of the leg had
to be amputated.
The plaintiff, admitting his own liability for one-fourth of
the damages received, claims recovery from the defendant as a
joint tortfeasor, for loss of income and for doctor and hospital
expenses, as well as for the pain and suffering sustained, and
also for a support pension. The district court held that the
plaintiff was entitled to compensation for 75% of the damage
received, insofar as that amount was not made good by
national insurance. The appeal of the defendant was
unsuccessful as was also his action for revision.
From the reasons for the decision:

1. The attacked judgment holds as follows: In any case,
the defendant negligently ran over and injured the plaintiff,
and he is therefore liable for the damage which he did, even if
the plaintiff’s leg had been run over by several other vehicles.
The defendant at least caused part of the damage when he
drove over the right leg, the fracture of which was the only
serious injury which the plaintiff showed. Even if he was not
the only one who caused this injury, even if one or several
others had driven over the plaintiff’s right leg, the defendant is
liable by virtue of sec. 830, subsec. 1, para. 2 of the Civil
Code. The language of this section embraces incidents where
the share of the individual in the damage cannot be
ascertained. Therefore, it does not matter any longer whether
the defendant was or was not the only one who brought about
this serious leg injury.
2. In the oral argument before the Supreme Court, it was
asserted that sec. 830, subsec. 1, para. 2 of the Civil Code is
not applicable in this situation, because this section requires
contemporaneousness of several dangerous acts. It was argued
that only in the case of simultaneous dangerous acts do there
exist the objective criteria necessary to determine which
dangerous act brought about the injury; while in cases in
which the acts are consecutive in time, then the later act may
Appendix D 63
not have been dangerous, because the damage may already
have been caused by an earlier act.
This interpretation ignores the purpose and scope of sec.
830 1-2. It must be granted, however, that in most litigations
the dangerous acts of several wrongdoers have occurred
simultaneously or immediately after one other. This happens
to be so for the simple reason that generally there is no doubt
as to which action caused the damage when the dangerous acts
are separated from one another in time. But cases also arise
where, despite the time sequence of the dangerous acts, there
is doubt as to which acts caused the injury. The fact that the
acts follow one upon another will not make sec. 830 1-2
inapplicable as is demonstrated by two cases decided by the
Reichsgericht and the Bundesgerichtshof.
(a) Excitement experienced caused the injured party to
have a gall-stone attack. During the evening in question, the
plaintiff was stirred up and agitated three separate times: once
when the plaintiff was informed by a member of the editorial
staff of a newspaper that (though untrue) he was beset by
grave financial difficulties; then, again, upon being informed
by the editor of another newspaper that they intended to
publish this report in their morning edition; and finally by the
conduct of the managing director of the latter paper, when he
refused to have these untrue newspaper reports retracted. Any
of these three incidents could have precipitated the gall-stone
attack, but it could not be determined which of these traumatic
excitements was responsible for the attack.
The Reichsgericht held that sec. 830 1-2 was applicable to
this set of facts. The requisites of this section were present
when each occurrence had the ability to bring about the injury
in accordance with the general rules of causation, and one of
them had acted upon the injured party, although it could not be
determined which act actually caused the injury. (RGZ 148,
154, 166 with references.)
(b) A house caved in because of lack of care on the part
of the roofers, an undertaking involving two men. The one
man had made defective concrete rafters and delivered them to
the building site. The other had then installed these defective
rafters. It could not be determined which act of negligence
caused the collapse of the building. The Bundesgerichtshof
held that both men were liable under sec. 830 1-2, because of
the delivery to the site and building into the house was to be

considered one indivisible act in which both men were
involved (VII ZR 268/56 March 14, 1957 — LM BGB sec.
830 No. 4).
3. A commentator on the code (Staudinger, Notes 3, 4
and concurring BGB-RGRK Note 9 at sec. 830) suggests that
the concept of “participation” in the sense of sec. 830 1-2
exists when someone is run over by one of several in a group
of vehicles, such as that of a festival party, but not when the
injury is caused by one of several trucks, independent of one
another, though using the same street, for in the latter instance
we are not dealing with a joint danger but with accidentally
consecutive events. If it is then impossible to determine which
of the tortfeasors caused the injury, all of the presumptive
tortfeasors will be relieved of liability.
The history of the origin of sec. 830 1-2 speaks against the
suggested requirement of a joint venture aspect in the
subjective sense, namely that the elements of danger shall act
jointly and know of one another. Section 714 of the first draft
indicates that joint liability exists “when one of the several
injuries was not inflicted by the several parties acting together,
but the proportions of damages caused by each cannot be
determined.” This provision was intended to cover the case at
hand, where it is impossible to determine which act caused the
damage. (Motive II 738.) To make this principle clear, and not
for the purpose of making the change in meaning in the second
draft (Protokoll II 606), sec. 753 was stated in the following
words: “The same applies (i.e. joint liability) when the several
parties have not acted together and it is impossible to
determine which individual act caused the damage.” The
provision was given its final form by the Drafting Committee,
and evidently at this stage of the preparatory work, when ques-
tions of formulations were the issue, the provision that joint
ventures or actions were not a necessary requisite was
excluded (Bydlinski, “Haftung bei alternativer Kausalität,”
Juristische Blätter, Wien 1959, p. 12). In light of this, the
Reichsgericht had already pointed out that the concept of
“participation” may be intensified by the mutual knowledge of
the acts of the other person to the point that there will be an
“act committed in common” (sec. 830, subsec. 1, para. 1), and
that there may exist a close connection with respect to the
place and time even in the absence of such knowledge (RG
WarnRspr 1912 No. 387).
Appendix D 65
4. Thus, neither sec. 830 1-2, nor the practice of the
Supreme Court (“Senat”) support the suggested postulates that
the imputable wrongful dangerous acts of several persons have
to be contemporary and have an internal relation with one
another.
(a) The purpose of 830 1-2 is to overcome the re-
quirement that the injured party prove the cause of his injury,
when it is impossible to ascertain which of several possible
wrongdoers actually caused the damage, or which of several
people, not acting in accord, caused what particular part of the
injury (RGZ 121, 400, 402 f.). To attain this goal, in favor of
the injured, a presumption as to the cause of the injury is used
(cf. Wussow, Unfallhaftpflichtrecht, 6 ed. TZ 299; Bydlinski,
op. cit., p. 13). The reason for this presumption is that the
recovery for damages caused by more than one person should
not turn on whether the injured party can show with certainty
what proportion of damage is attributable to each of the
wrongdoers (RG WarnRspr 1912 No. 387). This is particularly
necessary because the difficulty existing in proving the cause
of the injury was created by the wrongful and imputable acts
of the parties involved, and for which each of them is
responsible.
The injured party’s difficulty in presenting the needed
evidence can also arise, and need equal protection when the
wrongdoers acted one after another, just as if they had acted
jointly (compare the examples given under 2a and b, supra).
Granted that a party, acting after another party, is capable of a
dangerous act only in case the injury was not caused by the
earlier act. However, it is just the doubt as to cause that often
remains unresolved, and the purpose of sec. 830 1-2 is
specifically to remove this doubt and to put the burden on
those persons who committed the wrongful imputable and
dangerous acts.
However, it has to be required that the different acts, even
if consecutive parts of a course of events, are materially
connected with one another with respect to place and time and
are also alternative causes of the injury, so that each separate
act appears as a part of a unified whole; only if these
conditions are met does a “participation” of each wrongdoer in
the occurrence of the damage exist. The question of when such
a situation actually exists has to be decided in accordance with

the practical common sense of every day life (RG WarnRspr
1908 no. 633).
With respect to such course of events, it is irrelevant, both
from the point of view of the external relations and with
regard to the protected interest of the injured person whether
he is able to produce evidence, that the different wrongful and
imputable acts are as those of the members of a hunting party
or a group of automobiles, internally linked with one another.
The presence or the absence of an internal link is of no
concern, whether on the side of the wrongdoers or on the side
of the injured person. This is so because the injured party was
harmed by a single injurious act, although it appeared as if
there were a relationship with other acts, and the plaintiff’s
burden of proof will not be decreased because the various
doers of dangerous acts were not acting jointly and did not
know of one another.
(b) Consequently, this Court (“Senat”) does require that
the concept of participation shall imply neither that the
dangerous acts take place simultaneously, nor that there be a
subjective link between the several wrongdoers. Rather the
concept of participation is directed toward the situation, where
several persons, each acting independently, have committed
unlawful acts, where one of these acts has, and each of them
could have individually caused the resulting harm, where,
however, it is impossible to determine the real wrongdoer.
This is so, provided that there is an actual course of events
where, although independent, the events are uniform and
interrelated with respect to place and time, and where the
injury is within the sphere of this course of events (BGHZ 25,
274 with references). When the defendant in his appeal refers
to the decision of the Court BGHZ 30, 203, he is overlooking
the fact that in that case it was ascertained which share of the
damage that had been caused by each of the wrongdoers and
therefore, indeed, it was impossible to argue the application of
sec. 830 1-2. Further, in an extensive opinion—VI ZR
55/59—NJW 1960, 862 No. 4—this Court has already re-
jected the restrictive construction that sec. 830 1-2 requires an
internal relationship between several wrongdoers.
5. Thus, there is no objection to the finding of the Court
of Appeals that an actual participation, both in time and space,
occurred when at midnight the plaintiff was bodily injured on
the highway where he was struck by several motor vehicles,
Appendix D 67
and at least it is known that the defendant was involved in this
injury. Under sec. 830 1-2, the defendant has been given the
duty to prove that the loss of the lower part of the leg could
not have been caused by him. The Court of Appeals reached
the correct result, that the joint liability for damages under 830
1-2 extends to a case, where the proportion of damage caused
by each party is not determinable. Since the plaintiff was not
able to carry the burden of proof as to who caused the injury,
the Court of Appeals did not commit error in holding the
defendant, if not liable as an individual according to sec. 823,
nevertheless liable under 830 1-2 for the entire damage.

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A Primer on the

iv A Primer on the Civil-Law System

The authors acknowledge the contributions of several seminal works on the

2 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

In the Beginning: “All Roads Lead to Rome”

4 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

The History and Development of the Civil-Law System 5

Medieval Developments in Italy

6 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

The History and Development of the Civil-Law System 7

8 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

The History and Development of the Civil-Law System 9

10 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

The History and Development of the Civil-Law System 11

Intellectual Developments Leading to the

12 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

The History and Development of the Civil-Law System 13

The Codification Processes in France and

14 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

The German Code

The History and Development of the Civil-Law System 15

The Codes of Chile and Brazil

16 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

The History and Development of the Civil-Law System 17

18 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

The History and Development of the Civil-Law System 19

20 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

The History and Development of the Civil-Law System 21

The Public Law–Private Law Dichotomy

9. John H. Merryman, The Civil Law Tradition 92 (2d ed. 1985).

24 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

The Civil-Law System As It Exists and Functions 25

The Legal Process

26 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

The Civil-Law System As It Exists and Functions 27

28 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

Legal Actors: Tradition and Transition

The Civil-Law System As It Exists and Functions 29

Legal Education and Lawyers

11. Merryman, supra note 9, at 84.

30 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

Transition in the Civil-Law World

12. Merryman, supra note 9, at 37.

The Civil-Law System As It Exists and Functions 31

Origins of the Common-Law System

Jurists in the Common-Law System

34 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

Differences in the Two Systems

A Comparison of the Civil-Law and Common-Law Systems 35

36 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

A Comparison of the Civil-Law and Common-Law Systems 37

38 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

15. Merryman & Clark, supra note 6, at 389.

A Comparison of the Civil-Law and Common-Law Systems 39

Jean Louis Bergel, Principal Features and Methods of Codification, 48 La. L.

Excerpts from the Institutes of Gaius

THE INSTITUTES OF GAIUS—FOUR COMMENTARIES

FROM BOOK THREE

44 A Primer on the Civil-Law System

46 A Primer on the Civil-Law System