The Civil Code of Japan compared with
the French Civil Code.
By Kazuo Hatoyama, LL.D.
William L. Storrs, Lecturer in the Yale Law School, 1901–2.
(Continued from April and May Issues.)
VI.
Right in Personam.
General Provisions. — Whether the subject of an obligation should be capable of being estimated in money is a moot question. The French Code seems to have been based on the theory that it should be capable of being so estimated. The Japanese Code of 1890 was also based on the same doctrine and many European systems of jurisprudence adhere to the same principle. The present Japanese Code makes a new departure and provides in Article 399, that the subject of an obligation may be something not capable of being estimated in money. One of the reasons for maintaining that the subject of an obligation should be capable of appraisement in money is that, taking the contrary view, there would be a confusion of legal ideas with moral and social obligations. When the conceptions of moral and social obligations are so far advanced as to become common and general, they are taken up by legislators and coordinated with legal obligations. It is impossible to draw a scientific line of demarcation between legal obligations on the one hand and moral or social obligations on the other, by inquiring whether the subject thereof can be estimated in money or not. The advance of civilization has necessitated the recognition of obligations the subject of which can not be reduced to a monetary equivalent, and that necessity increases with the progress of time. The rights and duties arising out of family relationship, for instance, have certainly no money value, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that they can not be expressed in dollars and cents. The Japanese rule on this subject, placed as it is, in the General Provisions is applicable to all rights in personam, whether they spring from contract or any other facts or conditions recognized by law.
