Natural Persons

Civil Personality and Juridical Capacity

In civil law, a natural person becomes a subject of legal relations only upon the acquisition of civil personality. Civil personality is the legal quality by which a human being may have rights and obligations recognized by law. Juridical capacity is the fitness to be the subject of legal relations, while capacity to act is the power to produce legal effects by one's own acts.

The Civil Code treats juridical capacity as inherent in every natural person and lost only through death. It does not depend on age, intelligence, physical condition, civil status, legitimacy, sex, wealth, literacy, or registration in the civil registry. Once civil personality begins, the person can be an owner, heir, obligee, debtor, family member, party in interest, or beneficiary, subject to the rules governing the particular right involved.

Capacity to act is different because it concerns the person's ability to bind himself or herself by voluntary acts. A newborn child, a minor, or a person under guardianship has juridical capacity, but may have limited or no capacity to act. The law supplies representation, parental authority, guardianship, court approval, or statutory safeguards because incapacity to act restricts exercise, not existence, of legal personality.

Birth as the Beginning of Personality

For natural persons, birth is the general point at which civil personality begins. The Civil Code states that birth determines personality, but it also recognizes the conceived child as considered born for all purposes favorable to it if the child is later born under the conditions required by law. The rule makes actual birth the ordinary source of juridical capacity, while protecting beneficial rights that arise during conception and before delivery.

Birth for civil purposes means complete delivery from the mother's womb with life under the standards fixed by the Civil Code. The child must be separated from the maternal body; mere conception, pregnancy, fetal movement, medical viability, ultrasound detection, or partial delivery does not by itself amount to civil birth. A birth certificate records and proves the fact of birth, but registration is not the source of juridical capacity.

The law does not require naming, baptism, acknowledgment, legitimacy, or survival to adulthood before personality begins. A child born outside marriage has juridical capacity from birth. A child with serious disability has juridical capacity from birth. A child who dies shortly after birth may still have acquired personality if the statutory conditions are satisfied, and that brief legal existence may affect succession, donations, damages, filiation, support, and civil registry consequences.

The Conceived Child

The conceived child occupies a protected but conditional position. The Civil Code considers the conceived child born for all purposes favorable to it, provided the child is later born alive in the manner required by law. This rule is a legal fiction designed to prevent the loss of beneficial rights merely because the child was still in the womb when the right accrued.

The protection is favorable in character. It may preserve a share in succession, allow a donation intended for the unborn child, protect filiation-related benefits, preserve a claim connected with prenatal injury if the child is later born with personality, or allow legal representatives to safeguard the child's expectant interests. It does not convert the unborn into a full civil person for all private-law purposes before birth, and it does not impose purely burdensome civil consequences on the unborn child as if birth had already occurred.

The Constitution protects the life of the unborn from conception, but civil personality for private-law relations is still governed by the Civil Code rules on birth and the conceived child. Constitutional protection of unborn life and civil acquisition of personality are related but distinct. The first restrains acts against unborn life; the second determines when a human being becomes a subject of civil rights and obligations.

Requisites for the Favorable Fiction

The conceived child is treated as born only when three ideas concur: conception existed when the favorable right arose, the purpose of recognition is favorable to the child, and the child is later born under the statutory standard. If any of these ideas is absent, the favorable fiction does not operate.

• Conception must precede the right. The child must already have been conceived when the beneficial legal relation arose, such as when a decedent died, a donation was made, or a legal benefit was created.
• The effect must be favorable. The rule protects benefits and expectancies, not burdens detached from any benefit. Where a right carries ordinary incidents, the law preserves the right first and then applies the proper rules after birth.
• Birth must later satisfy the Civil Code. If the required birth does not occur, the law treats the child as not having acquired civil personality for the preserved civil purpose.

When the Child Is Considered Born

The Civil Code uses two standards to determine whether a fetus is considered born for civil purposes. The controlling facts are complete delivery, life at delivery, length of intrauterine life, and, in one situation, survival for twenty-four hours.

The seven-month rule is a civil-law proxy for viability. If the fetus had an intrauterine life of seven months or more, the law requires life at complete delivery and does not demand a full day of survival. If the fetus had an intrauterine life of less than seven months, the law requires survival for twenty-four hours after complete delivery before the child is deemed born for civil purposes.

Complete delivery matters because civil personality does not arise while the child remains in the womb. Life at complete delivery may be shown by signs of independent life, medical evidence, testimony, civil registry records, or other competent proof. The issue is not whether the child later becomes healthy or viable in the medical sense, but whether the statutory standard for being considered born has been met.

Effects of Acquisition

Once a natural person acquires juridical capacity, legal relations may attach to that person immediately. Ownership may vest in the child, succession rights may transmit, obligations may be chargeable to the child's estate, family relations may be recognized, and actions may be brought by or against the child through proper representatives. The child need not personally consent to these relations because juridical capacity is passive fitness, not autonomous decision-making.

In succession, a conceived child who was already conceived at the decedent's death may be protected as an heir if later born under the Civil Code standard. The child's share may have to be reserved, administration may be adjusted, and partition may be affected because hereditary rights are transmitted from the moment of death. If the child is not later considered born, the supposed share is redistributed as if the child had not acquired personality for that purpose.

In donations, a donation made to a conceived and unborn child may be preserved because the law regards the child as born for favorable purposes. Acceptance must be made by the persons who would legally represent the child if already born. The donation becomes effective for the child only if birth later satisfies the legal requirements; otherwise, the condition for civil personality fails.

In family relations, birth fixes the child's civil personality and permits the application of rules on filiation, parental authority, support, custody, surname, civil status, and legitimacy or nonmarital status. These relations do not create personality; they attach consequences to a person who has acquired it. A child is therefore a person before the law even if parentage is disputed, acknowledgment is absent, or the birth record is incomplete.

In property relations, juridical capacity allows a child to own property, including property requiring registration, subject to representation and substantive legal qualifications. A minor may appear in land records as owner through a representative because minority limits capacity to act, not capacity to own. By contrast, citizenship restrictions on private land ownership are limitations attached to the right to acquire land, not a denial that the human being has juridical capacity.

In obligations, a child may be a creditor, debtor, beneficiary, or obligor through law, succession, contract entered into by a representative, or other legal source. Enforcement and disposition require representation because the child lacks full capacity to act. The obligation is attached to the person or estate recognized by law, while acts of administration or litigation are performed by those authorized to act for the child.

Failure of the Conditions for Birth

If the fetus is not born alive under the Civil Code standard, juridical capacity is not acquired. The contemplated favorable rights do not vest as rights of a natural person, and legal relations depending on personality are resolved as though the child had not become a civil person. This is why the law's protection of the conceived child is conditional rather than absolute civil personality.

If the fetus had less than seven months of intrauterine life and dies before completing twenty-four hours after complete delivery, the child is not deemed born for civil purposes. The result may alter succession, donations, registration effects, and claims that require a separate civil personality. The law fixes this consequence even if the fetus showed signs of life immediately after delivery.

If the child had seven months or more of intrauterine life and was alive upon complete delivery, civil personality is acquired even if death follows shortly. That momentary personality is legally significant because rights may vest and then pass according to the rules on death, succession, obligations, or family relations. The short duration of life does not erase juridical capacity once the statutory standard has been satisfied.

Relation to Death

Juridical capacity is lost only through death, and death ends civil personality as to future legal relations. Rights and obligations already attached to the person are then governed by law, contract, will, succession, insurance, family law, or procedural rules. The beginning and end of personality are therefore legal boundary points: birth opens the person to civil relations, and death closes personal capacity while transmitting or extinguishing consequences as the law provides.

The acquisition of juridical capacity by natural persons is thus simple in principle but exact in application. Birth is the general source of personality; conception receives conditional protection for favorable purposes; complete delivery and the statutory survival rules determine whether birth is legally recognized; and limitations on capacity to act, status, or particular rights do not negate the basic juridical capacity acquired by a natural person.