188
The Green Bag
Such a juristic fact is also required for the extinction or alteration of a legal relation or a legal advantage.“ Juristic facts include — (a) Elemental occurrences in the course of nature. Such occurrences may be destructive, as in the case of a hail storm, or the death of persons or animals. They may be productive, as in the
ance with legal order. The most im portant operation of agreement lies in the domain of the law of obligations. Yet there are agreements having a real operation (tradition, delivery); and some lie in the domain of family law and the
law of inheritance. Unlawful acts by virtue of positive law operate to create obligations to pay
growth or ripening of fruits, or the birth
damages,‘0 penalties, or both, and of
of persons. Finally, they may be altera tive, as in physical or chemical processes,
course operate also to extinguish or alter rights.31
or in a destructive or productive influ ence upon life and human interests through lapse of time.“
law is the protection of the relation
(b) Human acts, or the casually de
rived operation of the human will on the external world.
These acts may
be: (1) such as are in conformity with legal order, as governing external rela tions, and which accordingly are called lawful acts; or (2) such acts as are con trary to the rules of legal order, and
IV.
The fourth element of private
itself,32 or the protection of the interest. This protection extends so far as is possible with the means afiorded to legal order—command and prohibi tion — and so far as it desires to protect the individual having in view its social
function. This protection is afforded in a variety
which are called unlawful acts. juristic facts" arising out of lawful
of ways.
acts are either unilateral dispositive acts,
(a) Even in the ideal; that is, through the simple existence of legal standards. In this aspect, command and prohibi
as in a voluntary transfer on the part of an owner of his ownership, or in the making of a will; or Such acts are bilateral, in agreement,
which is a concurrence of will ‘of two or more private persons, whereby ‘a change is to be effected in their rights, in accord 27The situation in which a young man. capable of marriage, stands to a young lady, and his interest in her, in her affection and fidelity. are protected only by the impulse of the juristic fact of an action able betrothal or marriage. The interest which one may have in the complete use of a garden is first protected by the impulse, or juristic fact, of a conveyance, or recording of a title which makes the garden his property. The interest which one who sufi'ers a physical injury has in damages for the expenses of his cure, lost time and smart-money, arises at the same instant that the injury is sus tained. If the damage is fully satisfied by payment, then the payment (solutr'o) becomes the operative juristic fact of the extinction of the claim for dam ages. a"Cf. the legal institution of prescription. B. G. 8., secs. 194~225; usucaption. B. G. 3., secs. 937-945; concerning time and dates, B. G. 13., secs. 186—193. "Dispositive acts, see B. G. 5-. secs. 104-185.
1.
In the abstract.
tion, as such, operate on morally gov
erned and law-abiding men. It is sufiicient for them to know what is com manded and what is prohibited, in order that their acts may conform to legal order.
(b) In a practical aspect, the simple existence of legal duties, the existence of courts, justice, the machinery of the law and public access to the courts with a possibility of judicial enforcement, are sufficient to deter many men from those
acts which are prohibited, and to occa "B. G. 8., secs. 823-853. “The criminal act of setting fire to a house which completely destroys it extinguishes the object of ownership. The claim for damages therefore rests upon a different object than that of ownership. See note 30. supra. a*Cj'. Sohrn, InsL, secs. 26, 33.
