Modification of Obligations by legal facts

Author(s)

Gustavo de Revorêdo Pugsley

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Direito (FD/SBD)
• Defense date: 2015-03-04

Examining board members

Lydia Neves Bastos Telles Nunes; Rodrigo Xavier Leonardo; Otavio Luiz Rodrigues Junior

• Advisor: Lydia Neves Bastos Telles Nunes

Abstract

Current legal theory generally considers the effects of legal facts (those resulting from the correlation between facts and norms) on the creation, modification or termination of legal relationships. While most authors addresses how legal facts create these relationships, the present study is devoted to legal facts tending to modify the legal relationship, particularly in the field of the Law of Obligations (duty to perform). At first, a criterion must be determined: modification of the isolated right or modification of the Obligation? In \"complex\" obligational relationships, there are many mutual rights and duties, such that the extinction of a right can result only in the modification of the relationship fully considered. Long ago, Savigny asserted that a reasonable analysis of a right must be based on a thorough understanding of the legal relationship at issue. There are now renewed reasons to adopt these relational criteria when analyzing legal relationships. The obligational relationship may be seen as a process, which leads to the reinforcement of its identity with the inclusion of a finalistic element. The ideas of modification and identity are linked, because if a \"change\" leads to the loss of identity, the legal relationship may, in fact, have been terminated. Most of the authors on the subject of modifications addresses the \"transfer of obligations\". Some other studies, beside these subjective modifications, addresses objective modifications, usually restricted to those made by agreement. The \"Pontes de Miranda\" classification, may serve as a useful reference when analyzing the issue of modifications. The author points to modifications by agreement, changes by dolus and culpa (fault, tort law and breach of contract), by force majeure or unforeseeable circumstances, impossibility of performance, and, ultimately, by the mora debitoris and mora creditoris/accipiendi (default, delay of performance) as modifications \"without breaking the identity of the legal relationship\". (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 12/09106-3 - Modification of Obligations by Legal Facts
• Grantee: Gustavo de Revorêdo Pugsley
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master