Error on Substantial Qualities and Nullity of Contract: A Civil Code Analysis

Extract

[...] The Commercial Chamber of the Court of Cassation has just recalled by a judgment of rejection of 11 April 2012, that the error, one of the vices of consent consecrated by article 1132 new of the Civil Code, according to whether it relates to a substantial quality of the contract or to external motives to its object, can be a cause of nullity of the contractual commitment. In this case, a private nurse acquired medical equipment for her office by using financing in the form of several leasing credits. From November 2003, she decided to stop honoring her rents. The lessor then decided to notify her of the termination of the contract and had the equipment seized. The private nurse decides to file an annulment lawsuit with the Court of First Instance. [...]

[...] The excusable error Finally, the substantial quality error that relates to the object of the contract must also be excusable, otherwise it would not be considered a vice of consent. In this case, the nurse, due to her status, should have been able to realize herself that the material she was acquiring would not be suitable for her activity, thereby committing an inexcusable error. She was indeed an informed client. 2 - . to the notion of essential qualities The Ordinance of 10 February 2016 referred to above has profoundly reformed the law of obligations by defining, in particular, for the first time the notion of essential quality. [...]

[...] B - Error on substantial qualities The old article of the Civil Code 1110 states 'That is not a cause of nullity of the contract when the error falls on the very substance of the thing that is its object' (Civil Code, article 1110). The February ordinance has taken up this definition by substituting that of substantial qualities with that of essential qualities 1 - On the notion of substantial qualities . The Court of Cassation's decision of 11 April 2012 recalls that the error is a cause of nullity of the contract only if it concerns a substantial quality of the thing that is its object. And only excusable error can lead to the nullity of the contractual commitment. [...]

[...] Therefore, a person can invoke the relative nullity of the contract when their consent has been impaired by violence, fraud and error on the thing. Violence is a cause of nullity when it has been exercised on one of the contracting parties by exerting physical and/or moral pressure, for example. Case law has also recognized economic violence (Cass. Civ 4 February 2015). The order of 10 February 2016, reforming the law of obligations, in particular, consecrates this notion of violence in its article 1140 and, in particular, economic violence in terms of article 114 of the Civil Code. [...]

[...] These reasons are too personal to be taken into consideration by all parties. This is not the case with the essential qualities of a contract that are known to all parties. In the judgment of 11 April 2012, the Supreme Court rejects the nurse's appeal for this reason, and she is in this regard censurable, but it nonetheless admits the possibility of considering the nullity of the contract for error on the reasons on the condition that the contract explicitly stipulates it. [...]