Contract law, deposit contract, contract for work, horse training, Court of Cassation, Civil Code, racing lease contract, obligation of care
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Abstract
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Abstract
The Court of Cassation rules on the qualification of a contract entrusting horses to a trainer, deciding between a deposit contract and a contract for work.
Extract
[...] This prohibition, in favor of the victim, makes it possible to exclude the qualification of a deposit contract. Indeed, according to Article 1944 of the Civil Code, the deposit must be returned to the depositor as soon as he requests it, even if the contract contains a determined duration. The text does not specify that a contrary clause is allowed, so it is binding on the parties. Thus, the owners should be able to recover their horses without causing an abusive termination of the contract. [...]
[...] This situation raises the following problem: entrusting horses to a trainer for their 'racing career' constitutes a revocable deposit contract at pleasure ? To reject the appeal, the Court of Cassation uses the principle that the accessory follows the principal. In this case, it considers that the obligation of custody is accessory to the obligation of training. It is therefore a contract of pension and training, not a deposit contract. This contract is not thus revocable at any time, since it is of a fixed duration. [...]
[...] However, the Court of Cassation is increasingly seeking to protect victims. To achieve this goal, it was necessary to exclude the qualification of deposit contract, otherwise the victim would not be able to be compensated. But this qualification does not seem satisfactory. II. The unsatisfactory use of the unitary qualification In the studied judgment, the importance of the obligation of care was forgotten to compensate the victim In addition, the presence of a determined duration is insufficient to deny the qualification of deposit contract A. [...]
[...] This is one of the characteristics of the deposit contract (Article 1927 of the Civil Code). And, unless the owners do not really care about their horses, which is not the case since they have recovered them, it is necessarily an essential obligation. Admittedly, the training obligation is important because it allows the desired goal to be achieved, but the obligation of care is just as important because the horses must live in good conditions. Therefore, a mixed qualification is imposed: both a contract of work and a deposit contract. [...]
[...] This allows it to exclude the deposit contract qualification and therefore to admit the trainer's compensation. To retain only one qualification, the judges of cassation use the rule 'accessorium sequitur principale », in confirming its existence, and especially its validity. B. The confirmation of the rule of 'the accessory follows the principal' According to the High Court, 'the obligation of care was only the accessory of the main obligation of training'. This may seem strange since, in a previous ruling, for a similar situation, the Court had used a mixed qualification (as we will see later). [...]
