GESTIONE DI AFFARI ALTRUI. — The g. di a. a. (negotiorum gestio) is, at least in the broad sense, quasi-contract (v.) and corresponds in practice to an implied mandate. It consists in the management of any affair in the name and on behalf of a third party who is presently absent or unaware, but whom it is prudently presumed would give the mandate if he were aware of the matter. Many circumstances may give rise to a g. di a.: the sudden call to arms or flight before the invading enemy of someone who had no time to make full provision for his affairs; the sudden death of groups of people, caused, for example, by bombardments, epidemics, or mass arrests; civil disturbances; the discovery of objects whose origin and ownership are unknown. Anyone who, in such or analogous circumstances, assumes responsibility for providing for the maintenance of another’s things and property (livestock, house, land) becomes a gestor of affairs.
Among the principal moral obligations of the gestor of affairs is that of administering the object of the management with due diligence and subsequently rendering an account of it to the interested party. Among his rights, on the other hand, is that the interested party recognize as having been done by himself whatever was necessary for the preservation of the object of the management, including any obligations that the gestor may have incurred; and that he be reimbursed for all necessary and useful expenses required by the object itself, even if these should ultimately have produced no successful result. It is also accepted that he may be given a reward proportionate to the work and risks he undertook and to the service thereby rendered to the owner. Civil legislation, moreover, generally defines more precisely the relations between the gestor and the owner. Italian legislation, among other things, does not permit a person incapable of entering into contracts to undertake a g. di a. (Italian Civil Code, art. 2020), and requires him to submit to the obligations of the management as though it were a genuine mandate (art. 2030); it also imposes the duty of continuing the management until the heirs can provide for it directly, should the original interested party meanwhile die (art. 2028). Neither Catholic morality nor civil law imposes, as a matter of justice, the duty of assuming the g. di a. a. There nevertheless remains the general obligation of charity to do so, if this is possible, does not constitute a serious inconvenience, there are no others who can and wish to do it, and serious harm to the interested party is feared if the management is not undertaken. Once the burden of management has been assumed, however, it is generally a grave duty of justice to conduct it in accordance with the moral law and customary practice.