Nienależne świadczenie w polskim Kodeksie zobowiązań z 1933 r. na tle porównawczym

This paper discusses the concept of undue payment in the Polish Code of Obligations of 1933 within a comparative perspective which includes a number of other contemporary codes (the Napoleonic Code, the Austrian ABGB, the German BGB and the Swiss Obligationrecht), Roman law, and the Polish Civil Code of 1964. The discussion is concerned with the framework of legal provisions constituting undue payment in each of the codes. Furthermore, while tracing the relationship between the Roman condictiones and its successors in modern law, the paper analyses the concept of legal ground of action. This is followed by a close examination of the conditions and circumstances which made the payor’s claim for the restitution of his payment admissible or inadmissible in the eyes of the court. The paper also examines the issue of liability in this type of actions that were actually heard at Polish courts. In the summary, the author attempts to make a reassessment of the functioning of undue payment in the Code of Obligations, a historic landmark of Polish legislation