Implicit Safety Obligation in Transport Contracts

Extract

[...] As early as 1928, the Court extended the obligation of safety to rail transport. In 1982, it reaffirmed that the transporter is liable for bodily harm unless force majeure. In 1996, it applied the same logic to air transport. This continuity shows that the 1911 ruling served as a foundation for a general regime of passenger transport. Doctrine sees the emergence of a contractual public order, an extension of good faith, or a prefiguration of essential obligations. This diversity of analyses testifies to the richness of the solution and its ability to structurally shape positive law. [...]

[...] The integration of this logic into the Civil Code also testifies to the durable scope of the solution. The obligation of security, initially implicit and limited to transport, becomes the illustration of a general principle: a contract cannot function if certain essential obligations are not protected. The legislator thus consecrates an requirement of contractual loyalty and coherence that imposes itself on all economic relationships. The 1911 judgment appears as a decisive milestone in the construction of a modern law of obligations, where the protection of the essence of the contract takes precedence over the letter of the text or the silence of the parties. [...]

[...] The legislator transforms this pretorian intuition into a general rule. The abolition of the cause by the reform does not call into question this logic: it reinforces it. It shows that the cause was only a conceptual support, and that the true normative value lay in the protection of the essence of the contract. The continuity between 1911 and 2016 thus reveals the depth of the jurisprudential contribution: the Court had anticipated a modern conception of the contract, centered on internal coherence and the protection of the legitimate interest of the creditor. [...]

[...] The February reform, by integrating Article 1170 into the Civil Code, directly prolongs the logic inaugurated by the Court of Cassation. The legislator takes up the idea that certain obligations are so closely linked to the purpose of the contract that they must be protected against any attack. This evolution shows how the 1911 solution had a structuring scope: it did not limit itself to maritime transport, but announced a renewed conception of contractual economy, based on the preservation of the objective utility of the contract. [...]

[...] It was in this silence that the Court of Cassation had to intervene, creating a new, implicit, but essential contractual obligation. The judgment rendered by the Court of Cassation, Civil Chamber, on 21 November 1911, known as Compagnie générale transatlantique, precisely deals with the question of the existence of a safety obligation in contracts for the transport of persons. It is a founding judgment, which marks the entry of this obligation into French positive law. A passenger had concluded a maritime transport contract with the Compagnie générale transatlantique. [...]