Section 1. A Truly Unjust Action

A damaging action must be truly unjust, depriving another of a good to which he has a strict right either in the thing or to the thing, because only damage unjustly inflicted induces the obligation of restitution (n. 431).

a. He who by his action inflicts damage on another, but does not injure commutative justice, even if by that action he sins against another virtue, is not bound to repair the damage.

Thus when Caius, with the mind of harming Sempronius, persuades Titius not to make a testament, because he foresees that he would make it in favor of Sempronius, he is not bound to restitution toward Sempronius, because Caius's action (persuasion), although damaging, is not unjust.

b. He who inculpably places a cause of damage and does not remove it, although he could, sins against commutative justice and is bound to reparation of the damage: for everyone must take care that an action placed by himself not harm another, as long as he can impede its damaging efficacy. Yet this obligation does not urge with relatively grave inconvenience, because the damaging action, as only materially unjust, is less voluntary than an action formally unjust.

From this principle the following cases are solved: alpha. a traveler who inadvertently set another's forest on fire; a pharmacist who by error gave poison for medicine; a counselor who inculpably gave harmful counsel, are bound to repair the whole damage which they could have impeded without grave inconvenience and did not impede. beta. He who by error charged another with a grave crime is not bound to retract if he cannot do this without grave detriment to his own reputation.¹

c. An owner who abuses his own thing for sinning does not thereby lose his right in his own thing; wherefore he who takes it away or destroys it does an injury; and he who holds another's thing is bound from strict right to return it to the owner, even if the owner is going to abuse it.

Yet since everyone is bound to impede the sin of his neighbor as far as he morally can, it is not permitted to return a thing to one who will abuse it for sin, unless a greater or lesser inconvenience is feared in proportion to the greater or lesser sin which the neighbor is going to commit.

d. An unjust distributor of offices or benefices injures commutative justice toward private persons who have obtained a strict right to the office or benefice. But they obtain this where a competition is proposed and under an onerous condition it is promised that the worthier man will be chosen. Such is a competition which is proposed with this condition, that a determined prize will be received by him who has made the best work or displayed the best thing.

As to the obligation of restitution which arises on the occasion of various exhibitions which today are made of machines, horses, fruits, flowers, etc., attention must first be given to whether the exhibition has the character of a competition or the character of a means for promoting the cultivation of things and therefore the common good.

In the former case he who displays the best thing acquires a right to the (first) prize, and therefore he who brings it about that the prize is not adjudged to him is bound to make restitution to him. In the latter case no one has a strict right to the prize. Therefore he who is the cause why the prize is not given to him to whom it corresponds by reason of the thing displayed, sins against distributive justice, but is not bound to reparation of damage.

¹ Cf. Lugo, disp. 8, n. 86; Ballerini-Palmieri III, n. 349; Lehmkuhl I, n. 969; Genicot I, n. 513.

455. On competition for ecclesiastical benefices. a. A twofold competition is distinguished: one general, which is proposed for an indeterminate benefice or office not yet vacant; another special, which is proposed for a certain and determined vacant benefice or office. If an office or benefice is conferred after a general competition, it must be conceded that the superior is not bound from commutative justice to prefer the more worthy man to the others, because the more worthy man who is omitted does not have a strict right to a determined benefice.

b. If a special competition is instituted, all teach that the superior is bound to confer the benefice on the worthier man; but not all agree whether the worthier man, by force of the competition, also acquires a strict right to the benefice, so that the superior must compensate him for the damage if, after omitting him, he chooses a less worthy man. The common opinion indeed teaches that the worthier man has a strict right to the benefice; but the opinion of those who deny the strict right of the worthier man seems probable. St. Alphonsus later retracted the opinion which at first he had called probable.¹

¹ St. Alphonsus, l. 4, n. 109; Elench. quaest. reform., q. 47. Cf. Lehmkuhl I, n. 972.