e to look after and manage their affairs, the result
of which would be that during their absence those affairs would be
entirely neglected: and of course no one would be likely to attend to
them if he were to have no action for the recovery of any outlay he
might have incurred in so doing. Conversely, as the uncommissioned
agent, if his management is good, lays his principal under a legal
obligation, so too he is himself answerable to the latter for an account
of his management; and herein he must show that he has satisfied the
highest standard of carefulness, for to have displayed such carefulness
as he is wont to exercise in his own affairs is not enough, if only a
more diligent person could have managed the business better.

2 Guardians, again, who can be sued by the action on guardianship,
cannot properly be said to be bound by contract, for there is no
contract between guardian and ward: but their obligation, as
it certainly does not originate in delict, may be said to be
quasicontractual. In this case too each party has a remedy against
the other: not only can the ward sue the guardian directly on the
guardianship, but the guardian can also sue the ward by the contrary
action of the same name, if he has either incurred any outlay in
managing the ward's property, or bound himself on his behalf, or pledged
his own property as security for the ward's creditors.

3 Again, where persons own property jointly without being partners, by
having, for instance, a joint bequest or gift made to them, and one of
them is liable to be sued by the other in a partition suit because he
alone has taken its fruits, or because the plaintiff has laid out money
on it in necessary expenses: here the defendant cannot properly be said
to be bound by contract, for there has been no contract made between the
parties; but as his obligation is not based on delict, it may be said to
be quasicontractual.

4 The case is exactly the same between joint heirs, one of whom is
liable to be sued by the other on one of these grounds in an action for
partition of the inheritance.

5 So, too, the obligation of an heir to discharge legacies cannot
properly be called contractual, for it cannot be said that the legatee
has contracted at all with either the heir or the testator: yet, as
the heir is not bound by a delict, his obligation would seem to be
quasicontractual.

6 Again, a person to whom money not owed is paid by mistake is thereby
laid under a