Conditions in general
A condition is a clause by means of which the effectiveness of a transaction is made dependent upon the occurrence or non-occurrence of a future and uncertain event. Depending on whether, upon the arrival (or non-arrival) of this event, the transaction is intended to take effect or to be terminated, we usually refer to either a suspensive or resolutive condition; today statutory definitions along this line are contained in § 158 BGB.
The Roman lawyers, too, recognized this distinction, although their terminology does not reveal this very clearly. The phrase "sub condicionem (contrahere, legare, etc.)" was for them tantamount to effecting a transaction under a suspensive condition.[3653] Known already in the law of the XII Tables,[3654] [3655] suspensive conditions were, historically, the older variety and they always appear to have retained their status as conditions par excellence. That a transaction may first be effective and subsequently, upon the occurrence or non-occurrence of a specific event, relapse into a state of ineffectiveness, on the other hand, was a notion ill suited to the formalistic thinking patterns of pre-classical jurisprudence. Even in classical Roman law, obligations stricti iuris could not thus be limited in their effect.[3656] The recognition of clauses of a resolutive character was therefore intimately linked to the rise of obligations, the actionability of which was determinable ex bona fide. Contracts of sale in particular were often subjected to what we would call resolutive conditions; but in many of these cases it was debatable whether the parties had not rather intended the clause to suspend the effects of their transaction. Difficult problems of interpretation were therefore bound to arise once the Roman lawyers had in effect, though not in name, begun to recognize two different types of condiciones. We shall deal first with suspensive and then with resolutive conditions before we return to the problem of where to draw the line between the two.
More on the topic Conditions in general:
- Interpretation of conditions
- Positive and negative conditions
- Economic conditions
- Living conditions in Rome
- Conditions and Terms in Contracts
- Impossible, illegal and immoral conditions
- Economic Conditions
- Economic conditions
- Economic conditions
- RESOLUTIVE CONDITIONS
- Conditions contra bonos mores and late classical jurisprudence
- The admissibility of resolutive conditions