Book1 Chapter06

GERMAN CIVIL CODE OF 1896

• Based on the English Translation by: Wang, Chung Hui (1907). The German Civil Code, translated and annotated with historical introduction and appendices. London: Stevens and Sons. [available on Archive.org]

BOOK I. General Principles.

Chapter VI. Exercise of Rights, Self-Defense, Self-Help.

Section 226.

• The exercise of a right which can only have the purpose of causing injury to another is unlawful.

Section 227.

• [I] An act required for purposes of necessary defence is not unlawful.
• [II] Necessary defence is that defence which is necessary in order to repel an actual unlawful attack upon oneself or another.

Section 228.

• If a person injures or destroys a thing belonging to another in order to avert from himself or from another a danger threatened by it, he does not act unlawfully, if such injury or destruction is necessary to avert the danger, and the damage is not out of proportion to the danger. If the danger was caused by such person's fault he is liable to make compensation.

Section 229.

• If a person, for the purpose of self-help, destroys or injures a thing, or for the purpose of self-help apprehends an obligor who is suspected of intending flight or overcomes the resistance of the obligee to an act which the latter is bound to permit, he does not act unlawfully if the help of a magistrate is not obtainable in a reasonable time, and there is danger that if he does not act immediately the realisation of the claim will be frustrated or seriously impeded.

Section 230.

• [I] Self-help must not be carried further than is necessary to avert the danger.
• [II] In case of the seizure of things, unless compulsory execution is effected, leave to distrain shall be applied for.
• [III] In case of the apprehension of the obligor, unless he is again set at liberty, leave for the precautionary detention of his person shall be applied for to the District Court in whose district the apprehension took place; the obligor shall be brought before the Court without delay.
• [IV] If the application to the Court is delayed or rejected, the restitution of the things seized and the liberation of the person apprehended shall take place without delay.

Section 231.

• If any person does one of the acts specified in 229 under the erroneous assumption that the necessary conditions exist to render his act lawful, he is liable to compensate the other party, even if the error was not due to negligence.