Understanding Legal Capacity, Rights, and Contracts: A Comprehensive Overview

Posted on Sep 4, 2024 in Law & Jurisprudence

Personality Traits and Legal Capacity

Key Concepts

Personality traits are inherent to every person and involve both benefits and obligations. These include nationality, marital status, name, address, capacity for enjoyment, and heritage.

Capacity for enjoyment refers to the legal capacity of a person to acquire rights and exercise them.

Capacity to exercise is the legal capacity that allows a person to actively exercise their rights.

Capacity to Enjoy enables a person to acquire and hold rights.

Nationality

Nationality is the legal bond that unites an individual with a particular state or nation (Article 10, Code 56 of the Constitution).

Name

Name is the word or set of words used to distinguish one person from others.

Types of Names

  1. Given Name: This is individual and arbitrary, chosen by the person registering the birth (Law No. 17,344 on name changes).
  2. Family Name (Surname): This is acquired by descent, either through marriage, extramarital relations, or adoption.

Address and Residence

Address (Article 59 of the Civil Code) is defined as the residence accompanied by the presumed intention of remaining there.

Elements of Address

  • Actual or Presumptive Intention to Stay: This is the internal or subjective element of the domicile. It consists of the desire to stay, perhaps because the place is the seat of their business or family relationships.
  • Residence: The physical presence of a person in a particular place, permanently or habitually.
  • Domicile: A casual, accidental, or transitory location of a person.

Understanding Goods and Rights

Types of Goods

Goods are things that have material existence, either physical or spiritual, real or abstract. They can provide a profit to the individual and are subject to private appropriation.

Classifications of Goods

  1. Principal Goods: Can exist independently (e.g., a house).
  2. Accessory Goods: Subordinate to another good and cannot exist independently (e.g., a tree on a property).
  3. Divisible Goods: Can be separated into parts without changing their substance.
  4. Indivisible Goods: Cannot be physically or intellectually divided.
  5. Fungible Goods: Can be replaced by others of the same nature, quantity, or quality (e.g., money).
  6. Non-Fungible Goods: Considered unique and irreplaceable (e.g., a specific piece of art).
  7. Consumable Goods: Destroyed or consumed upon first use (e.g., fuel).
  8. Non-Consumable Goods: Not destroyed upon first use (e.g., clothing).
  9. Commercial Goods: Can be traded or used in contracts.
  10. Non-Commercial Goods: Cannot be traded or used in contracts.
  11. Appropriable Goods: Can be owned and subject to private ownership.
  12. Non-Appropriable Goods: Belong to everyone and cannot be privately owned (e.g., air, sunlight).
  13. Tangible Goods: Perceptible by the senses (e.g., a car).
  14. Intangible Goods: Consist of rights, such as property rights and personal rights.

Property Rights and Personal Rights

Property Rights: Can be exercised against anyone (e.g., the right to ownership).

Personal Rights: Can only be exercised against specific individuals bound by an obligation (e.g., a contractual right).

Contracts: Agreements and Obligations

Definition of a Contract

A contract is an agreement of wills that generates rights and obligations.

Classifications of Contracts

  • Unilateral Contracts: Only one party is obligated.
  • Bilateral Contracts: Both parties have mutual obligations.
  • Gratuitous Contracts: Benefit one party without cost to the other (e.g., a gift).
  • Onerous Contracts: Both parties receive a benefit and incur a cost (e.g., a sale).
  • Commutative Contracts: The parties exchange things of equivalent value.
  • Aleatory Contracts: The value exchanged depends on an uncertain event.
  • Principal Contracts: Exist independently.
  • Accessory Contracts: Depend on another contract (e.g., a mortgage).
  • Consensual Contracts: Formed by mutual consent.
  • Real Contracts: Require the delivery of a thing to be valid.
  • Formal Contracts: Require specific formalities to be valid.
  • Contracts of Free Discussion: The terms are negotiated freely.
  • Contracts of Adhesion: One party sets the terms, and the other party can only accept or reject them.