Due care under the Civil Obligations Act

Abstract

A provision requiring parties to obligations to act with due care is one of the basic provisions of the Obligations Act, and therefore applies to all obligations. This provision states types of due care, care of bonus pater familias, care of bonus businessman and care of bonus professional, but does not define either the way how to determine whether certain person acted with required care nor legal consequences of acting without it. The paper firstly analyzes and presents the application of this provision ratione materiae, ratione tempore and ratione personae. Then, in detail and concretely, from the literature and jurisprudence standpoint, it presents individual types of due care, i.e. requirements that an individual type of care puts before parties to obligations, as well as examples of when these requirements were not met. Furthermore, the way how to determine whether certain person acted with a required care is discussed and consequences of acting without due care. The connection between provisions is distinguished, which ties legal consequences with a request or a possibility of knowledge of certain facts and provisions that require acting with certain care. The request for certain knowledge or a possibility to have certain knowledge originate from the later provision, and consequently legal consequences for persons who had to know or could know certain facts.