Chapter III. On Hiring and Leasing

Hiring or leasing is a contract by which the use or fruits of a thing, or the works of a person, are received by one and conceded by another for a certain wage and for a time. He who hands over a thing for the use or utility of another is called the lessor; the other is called the lessee or hirer. Moreover various species of hiring or leasing are numbered, namely, the leasing of buildings, fields, animals, labor and service, etc.

Concerning the contract of hiring or leasing, let it suffice to note these things:

I. The general rules of hiring or leasing are the following: 1st. the lessee can sublease, unless something else has been stipulated or detriment is done to the lessor from it; 2nd. the lease is not dissolved by the death of the contracting parties, but passes to the heirs; 3rd. if the time of the lease was not determined, it can cease at the judgment of either contracting party, provided he warn the other at a suitable time according to the custom of places and the nature of the thing leased; 4th. if the lessor has sold the thing leased, the lessee cannot be expelled, but the term of the lease must be awaited.

II. The obligations of the lessor are these: 1st. he is bound to disclose harmful defects of the thing to be leased; 2nd. he must furnish that the lessee enjoy it peacefully; 3rd. it belongs to him to sustain the necessary expenses for repairing the leased thing; 4th. he cannot change the form of the leased thing without the consent of the lessee.

III. The obligations of the lessee are the following: 1st. he ought to use the leased thing as a good father of a family for the sole end of the lease; 2nd. he is bound to restore or repair those things which have perished or become worse by his fault; 3rd. but concerning damages which the leased thing undergoes only from his juridical fault, he is not bound except after the sentence of a judge. - Cf. Kenrick, nn. 43 and 44.

Question 1. Is the lessee of fields bound to pay the entire rent in the case of sterility on account of hail, or another extraordinary misfortune?

Resp. Negatively, because although to some he seems, in the rigor of justice by natural law, to be bound to this, nevertheless by general custom it has been introduced that, if there is an enormous loss, something is remitted and the damage is borne equally by both. Except, unless from the fruits received during other years an equitable compensation is given. - Thus St. Alphonsus, n. 860. - But by common law, says Kenrick: "If there is a special pact about a certain sum of money to be paid each year as rent, the hirer will be bound to pay it, even if lightning, storm, or hostile attack has prevented him from peacefully possessing the leased thing." - Cf. Kenrick, n. 43.

To some extent emphyteusis and fief approach the contract of lease. Emphyteusis is a contract by which an immovable thing is conceded to another with respect to useful dominion, either in perpetuity or at least for ten years, with the burden of paying an annual rent to the direct owner. But fief is a contract similar to emphyteusis, or the handing over of an immovable thing for useful dominion, with the burden of showing service or fidelity to the direct lord. Yet emphyteusis and fief differ from lease, because they cannot be constituted except in an immovable thing, nor for a shorter time than ten years. - Cf. Kenrick, nn. 43, 44, 145, and 146.

Question 2. What is to be said especially concerning the hiring of works?

Resp. 1st. That the contract may be just, equality must be preserved between the wage and the work. The wage will be just which is customarily given to workers. The master is bound to agree with the worker concerning a just wage. And if this is left to the master's judgment, he must hand over a just wage, although the lowest.

Resp. 2nd. One wage is individual and another familial: the individual is that which suffices for nourishing a frugal and well-mannered worker; the familial is that by which a thrifty worker, having employed prudent aids, can support himself and his family, consisting of three or four children. Now let Cardinal Zigliara be heard, responding by order of the Supreme Pontiff, Leo XIII, to various doubts which arose concerning the Encyclical Rerum Novarum: "But if there is asked the criterion by which the equality of the thing between the manual work of the worker and the wage to be given by the master ought to be established, we answer: That criterion must be sought in the Encyclical from the immediate end of the worker, which imposes on him the natural office or necessity of laboring, namely from food and clothing for suitably sustaining life, and to which manual labor is first and principally ordered: 2. 2. q. 187, a. 3. Therefore as often as the work is such that through it the worker satisfies his aforesaid natural office of attaining the immediate end of his labor, and the wage is unequal for attaining this end, namely suitable food and clothing, speaking of itself and with the nature of things considered, there is an objective inequality between the work and the wage, and therefore an injury of commutative justice."

Question 3. Is a familial wage owed to workers by justice?

Resp. 1st. Affirmatively, by legal justice, so that the master sins gravely against it who does not assign this wage to workers.

Resp. 2nd. Authors disagree concerning whether it is owed by commutative justice. Yet the negative opinion seems to us to be preferred. For the equality which commutative justice regards appears between the labor of the worker and those things which are necessary for sustaining him, but in no way between the labor of one man and those things which are necessary for nourishing a whole family: this is the doctrine of Cardinal Zigliara in his response to the question: "Will the master sin who indeed pays a wage sufficient for the support of the workman, but unequal for nourishing his family, whether this consists of a wife and numerous offspring, or whether it is not so numerous? If affirmatively, against what virtue?"

Resp. "He will not sin against justice; yet sometimes he will be able to sin either against charity or against natural honesty. Explanation. From this very fact, that according to the things declared the equality of wage and work is observed, the demands of commutative justice are fully satisfied. But the work is the personal work of the worker and not of his family, nor is it referred to the family itself first and of itself, but secondarily and by accident, inasmuch as the worker distributes the received wage with his own. Therefore just as the family, in the case, does not increase the work, so by justice it does not require that the wage owed to the work itself be increased."

Question 4. Is it licit for workers to enter contracts among themselves concerning cessation from works so that they may obtain a greater wage?

Resp. 1st. Affirmatively, if the pacts are made concerning ceasing from works so that they may obtain a just wage, at least the lowest. Wherefore if workers do not receive a just stipend for labor, they can without injustice cease from labors before the end of the contract begun with the hirers. 2nd. Affirmatively, if there is question of pacts by which they agree among themselves not to hire out their works except for the highest just wage. Therefore although they receive a just stipend, they do not commit injustice if, when the time of hire has elapsed, they cease from labors until they obtain a stipend, within the limits of the just, highest for the work to be furnished. 3rd. Negatively, if they make a pact among themselves not to hire out work except for a price exceeding the highest just price. And it must be noted that in executing just pacts injustice is committed if other workers who wish to labor for a lower price are unjustly impeded from hiring out their works, for example, by force, threats, or lies. - Noldin, n. 318.

Let it not fall from the memory of workmen that duties are not to be omitted: "But the duties are very great: not to touch the things of others; to allow individuals to be free concerning their own things; to prohibit no one from being able to place his work where he pleases and when he pleases." Leo XIII, Longinqua.