Paragraph First: General Principles

Article 149

Article 149 - There is management of another's affairs when a person takes the initiative to manage someone else's business without being entrusted with it and with the intention of acting on behalf of that other person. When a person finds themselves, unwittingly, managing the interests of a third party and believes they are administering their own estate, the situation is governed not by the rules of management of another's affairs but by those of unjust enrichment.

Article 150

Article 150 - Judicial acts, like material acts, are capable of nourishing a business management.

Article 151

Article 151 - The management of affairs may be undertaken either in a spirit of disinterestedness or with an interested aim and particularly on the occasion of the manager's functions or profession. An incapable person cannot constitute themselves as a business manager; if they do manage, they are only liable to their master within the limits of their enrichment.

Article 152

Article 152 - The death of the manager brings an end to the management of affairs, the obligations of his heirs being governed by the provisions of Article 820 relating to mandate.

Article 153

Article 153 - When the manager is mistaken as to the identity of the principal, the rights and obligations arising from the management are established between him and the true owner of the affair.

Article 154

Article 154 - When the principal explicitly or tacitly ratifies the management, the rights and obligations of the parties to each other are governed by the rules of agency from the origin of the matter, as regards the parties themselves, and from the date of ratification as regards third parties. In the contrary case, or until such ratification, these rights and obligations are governed by the provisions of Articles 161 and following.

Article 155

Article 155 - The managing agent is subject only to the rules of agency with regard to acts for which he would have received an express mandate.

Article 156

Art. 156 - The manager must exercise the care of a good head of family in management, and comply with the known or presumed will of the principal. He is liable for any fault, even a slight one. However, he is only bound by the care he would exercise in his own affairs: 1. When his intervention was intended to prevent an imminent and significant harm that threatened the principal; 2. When he has merely continued, as an heir, a management that was commenced by his predecessor.

Article 157

Article 157 - The manager is required to continue the management he has begun until the master is in a position to do so himself, unless the interruption of management would harm the master.

Article 158

Article 158 - The agent is held to the same obligations as the mandatary with regard to the return of what he has received as a result of his management and the rendering of his accounts.

Article 159

Article 159 - A manager who has interfered with the affairs of another contrary to the known or presumed will of the principal, or who has undertaken operations contrary to his presumed will, shall be liable for all damages resulting from his management, even if no fault can be imputed to him.

Article 160

Article 160 - However, the contrary will of the master cannot be invoked when the business manager had to provide urgently: 1 - to a master's obligation resulting from law and requiring public interest fulfillment; 2 - to a legal obligation for support, funeral expenses, or other obligations presenting the same character of necessity.