Title II: Of the Imputability of a Delict, of Causes Aggravating or Diminishing It, and of the Juridical Effects of a Delict

The imputability of a delict depends on the malice of the delinquent or on his fault in ignorance of the violated law or in omission of due diligence; wherefore all causes which increase, diminish, or remove malice or fault, by that fact increase, diminish, or remove the imputability of the delict.

§ 1. Here malice is the deliberate will of violating the law, and opposed to it on the part of the intellect is defect of knowledge, and on the part of the will defect of freedom.

§ 2. Once the external violation of the law has been posited, malice in the external forum is presumed until the contrary is proved.

§ 1. Those who actually lack the use of reason are incapable of a delict.

§ 2. The habitually insane, although sometimes they have lucid intervals, or in certain reasonings or acts seem sane, nevertheless are presumed incapable of a delict.

§ 3. A delict committed in voluntary drunkenness is not without some imputability, but that imputability is less than when the same delict is committed by one who is fully master of himself, unless however the drunkenness was sought precisely for perpetrating or excusing the delict; but when a law has been violated in involuntary drunkenness, imputability is wholly absent if the drunkenness entirely takes away the use of reason; it is diminished if only in part. The same is to be said of other similar disturbances of mind.

§ 4. Weakness of mind diminishes the imputability of a delict, but does not remove it entirely.

§ 1. Violation of an unknown law is not imputed in any way, if the ignorance was inculpable; otherwise imputability is diminished more or less according to the culpability of the ignorance itself.

§ 2. Ignorance of the penalty alone does not remove the imputability of the delict, but somewhat diminishes it.

§ 3. The things established concerning ignorance also hold for inadvertence and error.

§ 1. If someone has violated a law from omission of due diligence, imputability is diminished according to the measure to be determined from the circumstances by a prudent judge; but if he foresaw the matter and nevertheless omitted the precautions for avoiding it which any diligent person would have used, the fault is proximate to malice.

§ 2. A fortuitous event which cannot be foreseen or, once foreseen, cannot be met, exempts from any imputability.

Minor age, unless another thing is established, diminishes imputability, and the more so the closer it approaches infancy.

§ 1. Physical force which takes away every faculty of acting excludes a delict completely.

§ 2. Grave fear also, even only relative, necessity, indeed even grave inconvenience, for the most part wholly remove a delict, if there is question of merely ecclesiastical laws.

§ 3. But if the act is intrinsically evil or tends toward contempt of the faith or of ecclesiastical authority or toward damage of souls, the causes of which in Sec. 2 indeed diminish the imputability of the delict, but do not take it away.

§ 4. The cause of legitimate defense against an unjust aggressor, if due moderation is observed, wholly takes away the delict; otherwise it only diminishes imputability, as also does the cause of provocation.

Passion, if it was voluntarily and deliberately excited or nourished, rather increases imputability; otherwise it diminishes it more or less according to the diverse heat of the passion; and wholly removes it if it precedes and impedes every deliberation of mind and consent of will.

Besides other aggravating circumstances, a delict is increased:

1° On account of the greater dignity of the person who commits the delict, or who is offended by the delict.

2° From abuse of authority or office for perpetrating the delict.

§ 1. A recidivist in the sense of law is one who after condemnation again commits a delict of the same kind and in such circumstances of things and especially of time that his pertinacity in bad will can prudently be inferred.

§ 2. One who has offended several times even in a different kind increases his culpability.

§ 1. Those who, by common counsel of offending, concur physically together in a delict are all held guilty in the same manner, unless circumstances increase or diminish the culpability of someone.

§ 2. In a delict which by its nature requires an accomplice, each part is culpable in the same manner, unless another thing appears from the circumstances.

§ 3. Not only the one commanding, who is the principal author of the delict, but also those who induce to the consummation of the delict or in any way concur in it contract, other things being equal, no less imputability than the executor of the delict himself, if the delict would not have been committed without their work.

§ 4. But if their concurrence only rendered the delict easier, which would have been committed even without their concurrence, it brings lesser imputability with it.

§ 5. One who by opportune retraction has fully withdrawn his influence in perpetrating the delict is freed from all imputability, even if the executor nevertheless perpetrated the delict for other causes proper to himself; if he has not fully withdrawn it, retraction diminishes culpability, but does not take it away.

§ 6. One who concurs in a delict only by neglecting his office is held by imputability proportionate to the obligation by which he was constrained to prevent the delict by his office.

§ 7. Praise of a perpetrated delict, participation in its fruits, concealment and reception of the delinquent, or other acts following upon a delict already fully completed, can constitute new delicts, namely if they are punished by a penalty in law; but unless there was agreement with the delinquent concerning those acts before the delict, they do not bring with them the imputability of the perpetrated delict.

§ 1. From a delict there arises:

1° A penal action for declaring or inflicting a penalty and for seeking satisfaction.

2° A civil action for repairing damages, if the delict has brought damage to anyone.

§ 2. Each action is pursued according to the norm of can. 1552-1959; and the same judge in a criminal trial can at the instance of the injured party recall the civil action to examination and define it.

All who concur in a delict according to the norm of can. 2209, Sec. 1-3 are held by obligation in solidum of repairing expenses and damages which have arisen from the delict to any persons whatsoever, although condemned by the judge pro rata.