Debtor (redirected from Debtors)

Debtor 

in civil law, a party to an obligation, that is, a party obliged to perform a certain act or to refrain from performing an act. Only persons able to exercise civil rights and obligations, that legal “persons”[such as corporations] can act in the capacity of debtors.

In bilateral contractual obligations, one and the same person can be both a debtor and a creditor (for example, under a sale and delivery contract the contractor is a debtor as far as his obligation to deliver goods is concerned and a creditor in connection with the receipt of money). In obligations, several persons can be the debtor (the so-called plurality of debtors). In this case, the obligation is fulfilled by each debtor to the extent of his share and, in the case of joint and several liability, each of the debtors is obliged to fulfill the obligation to the full extent (for example, in the case of indivisibility of the object of obligation, see the Civil Code of the RSFSR, art. 180; in the case of joint guaranty, the Civil Code of the RSFSR, art. 204). The debtor who has fulfilled the obligation in its entirety has the right of claim on other debtors for exoneration.

E. G. POLONSKII