§ II. Who Can Acquire from Donation

883. • Those are capable of acquiring from donation who are not constituted incapable by law of receiving donations. Nor are infants, the insane, or others lacking the use of reason to be held incapable, since they are capable of dominion, and can accept or occupy things through others, for example through parents, guardians, etc., according to what was said in n. 600, 3°. Hence the following cannot acquire from donation:

a) All receiving from those who, whether in fact or in law, are incapable of donating, n. 881. But those receiving from those who are incapable in fact do not acquire from donation in either forum. The others are to be treated for the internal forum according to what was said in n. 882, Query 1° and 2°.

b) Those who were not conceived at the time of donation, or, as to testament, at the time of the death of the testator.¹ Concerning the exception of substitution it will be treated below (n. 898).

c) Communities, unless they have been endowed by civil authority with the right of acquiring, and only to the extent to which they have been endowed with it. But Colleges (corporations) cannot acquire by testament, unless and insofar as this is specially granted to them in the Charter by which they are constituted.² (n. 617, 2°). The things which we say here concerning communities are not to be attended to for the internal forum if it is a question of communities which are subject to the Church; for neither can laws of amortization, such as are those by force of which those communities are incapable of acquiring unless they are endowed with that right by the civil authority, prevail over the rights of the Church. See what is to be said below where informal testament to pious causes is treated, and what was said in n. 882, Query 2°.

d) In Louisiana "doctors of physic or surgeons, who have professionally attended a person during the sickness of which he died, cannot receive any benefit from donations inter vivos or mortis causa made in their favor by the sick person during that sickness. To this, however, there are the following exceptions:

1. Remunerative dispositions made on a particular account, regard being had to the means of the disposer and to the services rendered.

2. Universal dispositions in case of consanguinity.

The same rules are observed with regard to ministers of religious worship."¹