Article — Koch–Preuss
Article 5: Restitution for Damage Done in the Choice of a Vocation or the Pursuit of an Occupation
I. If one is under a grave obligation to help another to embrace a certain occupation or profession, and neglects this obligation, though he is able to fulfil it, with the result that the other remains without a calling, he is obliged to make restitution. This duty often falls upon parents or their representatives in regard to children.
The compensation made can, of course, be only a partial one because the victim of such neglect will never be able to enjoy the authority and influence which the contemplated calling or profession would have given him. But that which every man obtains through his calling, namely, work and a livelihood, must be given to such a neglected person. A mere annuity without some sort of occupation would be a poor compensation for a neglected training, for “if any man will not work, neither let him eat.”1 If the neglected person decides of his own accord to engage in some occupation that does not correspond to his station in life, those guilty of allowing or necessitating this ill choice will be in duty bound to repair the injury done him as best they can, for instance, by improving his condition, by endowing him with money or property, though the last-mentioned manner of restitution can never be a full equivalent for a lost professional training.
1 2 Thess. III, 10; see this Handbook, Vol. III, pp. 130 sq.
If a child is forced by his parents or guardians to choose a vocation or profession for which he has neither aptitude nor inclination, and for which he has had no chance to obtain the necessary training, such parents or guardians are obliged to make restitution, though adequate compensation in such cases is manifestly impossible; wherein men have failed, God alone can repair.2
2 Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 104, art. 5; Conc. Trid., Sess. XXV, De Reg. Monial., c. 18.
- He who for an unjust motive keeps another away from an office or position for which he has duly prepared himself, and which he has a right to occupy, no matter what the means chosen, is obliged to make restitution for the injury inflicted,—an injury, by the way, often not limited to the past, but extending into the future.
If a man is unable to hold his position in consequence of the opposition of others, a distinction must be made as to the means employed by the latter; if these means do not involve a violation of commutative justice, the civil law does not demand compensation, on the principle that “Qui suo iure utitur, neminem laedit.” Christian equity, however, requires of each and every man that he “let others live.”
“All things therefore, whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them.”3