Reading Release: How to Extinguish a Solidary Obligation

Abstract

This Article explores how the Louisiana Civil Code uses a few key words to describe what happens when a creditor intentionally extinguishes the obligation of a debtor. While the Code provides fairly detailed rules and even some definitions of contracts and other methods that extinguish obligations, the Code does not do so for the term of art “release,” which it nevertheless employs several times in several contexts. Exploring the meaning of this term of art takes us through the process of the revision of the Louisiana Civil Code of 1870, and shows how some important decisions were made, particularly regarding the nominate contract of compromise, whose full effects might not have been fully appreciated. The awkward connection between “release” and “concession” is suggested. Thus, the goal of this Article is to illuminate some of the difficulties, if not embarrassments, that occur in attempting to put law into words, whose meanings we understand, or ought to.