The Civil Code of Lower Canada

106.　The provisions of the two preceding articles do not affect actions for the recovery of inheritances and of other rights which actions belong to the absentee, his heirs and legal representatives, and are only extinguished by the lapse of time required for prescription. 608.　In order to inherit, it is necessary to be civilly in existence at the moment when the succession develves; thus, the following are incapable of inheriting: 1. Persons who are not yet conceived; 2. Infants who are not viable when born; 3. Persons who are civilly dead. 610.　The following persons are unworthy of inheriting and, as such, are excluded from successions: 1. He who has been convicted of killing or attempting to kill the deceased; 2. He who has brought against the deceased a capital charge, adjudged to be calumnious; 3. The heir of full age, who, being cognizant of the murder of the deceased, has failed to give judicial information of it. 614.　Successions devolve to the children and descendants of the deceased, and to his ascendants and collateral relations, in the order and according to the rules hereinafter laid down. 619.　Representation is a fiction of law, the effect of which is to put the representatives in the place, in the degree and in the rights of the person represented. 620.　Representation takes place without limit in the direct line descending; it is allowed whether the children of the deceased compete with the descendants of a predeceased child, or whether all the children of the deceased having died before him, the descendants of these children happen to be in equal or unequal degrees amongst themselves. 621.　Representation does not take place in favor of ascendants; the nearest in each line excludes the more distant. 622.　In the collateral line representation is admitted only where nephews and nieces succeed to their uncle and aunt concurrently with the brother and sister of the deceased. 623.　In all cases where representation is admitted, the partition is effected according to roots; if one root have several branches, the subdivision is also made according to roots in each branch, and the members of the same branch divide among themselves by heads. 625.　Children or their descendants succeed to their father and mother, grandfathers and grandmothers, or other ascendants, without distinction of sex or primogeniture, and whether they are the issue of the same or of different marriages. They inherit in equal portions and by heads when they are all in the same degree and in their own right; they inherit by roots, when all, or some of them, come by representation. 626.　If a person dying without issue, leave his father and mother and also brothers or sisters, or nephews or nieces in the first degree, the succession is divided into two equal portions, one of which devolves to the father and mother, who share it equally, and the other to the brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces of the deceased, according to the rules laid down in the following section. 627.　If, in the case of the preceding article, the father or mother had previously died, the share he or she would have received accrues to the survivor of them. 628.　If the deceased leave no issue nor brothers nor sisters, nephews nor nieces in the first degree, nor father nor mother, but only other ascendants, the latter succeed to him to the exclusion of all other collaterals. 629.　In the case of the preceding article the succession is divided equally between the ascendants of the paternal line and those of the maternal line. The ascendant nearest in degree takes the half accruing to his lino to the exclusion of all others. Ascendants in the same degree inherit by heads in their line. 630.　Ascendants inherit, to the exclusion of all others, property given by them to their children or other descendants who die without issue, where the objects given are still in kind in the succession, and if they have been alienated, the price, if still due, accrues to such ascendants. They also inherit the right which the donee may have had of resuming the property thus given. 636.　When the deceased leaves no relations within the heritable degree, his succession belongs to his surviving consort. 840.　Dispositions in contemplation of death made of a person's whele property, or part thereof, in legal form by will or codicil, and whether they are expressed in the terms of an appointment of heir, of a gift, of a legacy or in other terms indieating the intentions of the testator, take according to the rules hereinafter laid down, as universal legacies, legacies by general title, or as particular legacies. 1031.　Creditors may exercise the rights and actions of their debtor, when to their prejudice he refuses or neglects to do so; with the exception of those rights which are exclusively attached to the person. 1032.　Creditors may in their own name impeach the acts of their debtors in fraud of their rights, according to the rules provided in this section. 1033.　A contract cannot be avoided unless it is made by the debtor with intent to defraud, and will have the effect of injuring the creditor. 1040.　No contract or payment can be avoided by reason of any thing contained in this section at the suit of any individual creditor, unless such suit is brought within one year from the time of his obtaining a knowledge thereof. If the suit be by assignees or other representatives of the creditors collectively, it must be brought within a year from the time of their appointment. 1065.　Every obligation renders the debtor liable in damages in case of a breach of it en his part. The creditor may, in cases which admit of it, demand also a specific performance of the obligation, and that he be authorized to execute it at the debtor's expense, or that the contract from which the obligation arises be set aside; subject to the special provisions contained in this code, and without prejudice, in either case, to his claim for damages. 1071.　The debtor is liable to pay damages in all cases in which he fails to establish that the inexecution of the obligation proceeds from a cause which cannot be imputed to him, although there be no bad faith on his part. 1072.　The debtor is not liable to pay damages when the inexecution of the obligation is caused by a fortuitous event or by irresistible force, without any fault on his part, unless he has obliged himself thereunto by the special terms of the contract. 1073.　The damages due to the creditor are in general the amount of the loss that he has sustained and of the profit of which he has been deprived; subject to the exceptions and modifications contained in the following articles of this section. 1074.　The debtor is liable only for the damages which have been foreseen or might have been foreseen at the time of contracting the obligation, when his breach of it is not accompanied by fraud. 1075.　In the case even in which the inexecution of the obligation results from the fraud of the debtor, the damages comprise only that which is an immediate and direct consequence of its inexecution. 1076.　When it is stipulated that a certain sum shall be paid for damages for the inexecution of an obligation, such sum and no other, either greater or less, is allowed to the creditor for such damages. But if the obligation have been performed in part, to the benefit of the creditor and the time for its complete performance be not material, the stipulated sum may be reduced; unless there be a special agreement to the contrary. 1131.　A penal clause is a secondary obligation by which a person, to assure the performance of the primary obligation, binds himself to a penalty in case of its inexecution. 1132.　The nullity of the primary obligation for any other cause than want of interest, carries with it that of the penal clause. The nullity of the latter does not carry with it that of the primary obligation. 1133.　The creditor may enforce the performance of the primary obligation, if he elect so to do, instead of demanding the stipulated penalty; But he cannot demand both, unless the penalty has been stipulated for a simple delay in the performance of the primary obligation. 1134.　The penalty is not incurred until the debtor is in default of performing the primary obligation, or has done the thing which he had obliged himself not to do. 1135.　The amount of penalty cannot be reduced by the court. But if the obligation have been performed in part to the benefit of the creditor, and the time fixed for its complete performance be not material, the penalty may be reduced; unless there is a special agreement to the contrary. 1136.　When the primary obligation contracted with a penal clause is indivisible, the penalty is incurred upon the contravention of it by any one of the heirs or other legal representatives of the debtor; and it may be demanded in full against him who has contravened it, or against each one of them for his share and portion, and hypothecarily for the whole; saving their recourse against him who has caused the penalty to be so incurred. 1137.　When the primary obligation contracted under a penalty is divisible, the penalty is incurred only by that one of the heirs or other legal representatives of the debtor who contravenes the obligation, and for the part only for which he is held in the primary obligation, without there being any action against those who have executed it. This rule suffers exception when, the penal clause having added with the intention that the payment could not be made in parts, one of the coheirs or other legal representatives has prevented the execution of the obligation for the whole; in this case he liable for the entire penalty and the others are liable for their respective shares only, saving their recourse against him.