Review article
https://doi.org/10.3935/zpfz.76.2.4
Donatio mortis causa in Polish Law: A Study in European Legal Tradition
Piotr Łochowski
; Faculty of Law, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Kraków, Poland
Abstract
This article examines the legal regulation of gifts upon death under Austrian, French, and German law as applied in the Polish territories during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The institution of a gift upon death, deeply rooted in Polish legal tradition, was reintroduced into Polish law following the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling of 13th December 2013. The study analyses how this legal instrument was understood and regulated across three distinct legal systems that operated simultaneously in the then partitioned Poland: the Napoleonic Code in Congress Poland, the Austrian Civil Code (ABGB) in Galicia, and the German Civil Code (BGB) in Prussian territories. The article elucidates the fundamental differences between donatio mortis causa, derived from Roman law and characterized by a condition of the done’s survival, and donatio post obitum, rooted in Germanic tradition and dependent on the donor’s death as a deadline rather than a condition. By tracing the historical development and legal construction of deathbed gifts across these codifications, the work demonstrates how Polish legal scholarship adapted and interpreted diverse foreign legal regimes during the partition period. Furthermore, it explains why gifts upon death were eliminated from Polish law in 1947 and subsequently restored in 2013, despite the Supreme Court’s failure to clearly distinguish between the two forms in its ruling.
Keywords
donatio mortis causa; inheritance law; European legal tradition; roman law
Hrčak ID:
349598
URI
Publication date:
21.7.2026.
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