DATION EN PAIEMFNT, civil law. This term is used in Louisiana; it signifies that, when instead of paying a sum of money due on a pre-existing debt, the debtor¹ gives and the creditor² agrees to receive a movable or immovable.

2. It is somewhat like the accord and satisfaction of the common law. 16 Toull. n. 45 Poth. Vente, U. 601. Dation en paiement resembles in some respects the contract of sale; dare in solutum, est quasi vendere. There is, however, a very marked difference between a sale and a dation en paiement. 1st. The contract of sale is complete by the mere³ agreement of the parties the dation en paiement requires a delivery of the thing given. 2d. When the debtor pays a certain sum which he supposed he was owing, and be discovers he did not owe so much, he may recover back the excess, not so when property other than money has been given in payment. 3d. He who has in good faith sold a thing of which he believed himself to be the owner, is not precisely⁴ required to transfer the property of it to the buyer and, while he is not troubled in the possession of the thing, he cannot pretend that the seller has not fulfilled his obligations. On the contrary, the dation en paiement is good only when the debtor transfers to the creditor the property in the thing which he has agreed to take in, payment and if the thing thus delivered be the property of another, it will not operate as a payment. Poth. Vente, n. 602, 603, 604.

DATIVE. That which may be given or disposed of at will and pleasure. It sometimes means that which is not cast upon the party by the law, or by a testator, but which is given by the magistrate⁵; in this sense it is that tutorship is dative, when the tutor is appointed by the malistrate. Lec. Elem. §239; Civ. Code of L. art. 288, 1671.

DAUGHTER. An immediate⁶ female descendant. See Son.

DAUGHTER-IN-LAW. In Latin, nurus, is the wife of one's son.

DAY. A division of time. It is natural, and then it consists of twenty-four hours, or the space of time which elapses while the earth makes a complete revolution on its axis⁷; or artificial, which contains the time, from the rising until the setting of the sun, and a short time before rising and after setting. Vide Night; and Co. Lit. 135, a.

2. Days are sometimes calculated exclusively, as when an act required that an appeal should be made within twenty days after a decision. 3 Penna. 200; 3 B. & A. 581; 15 Serg. & Rawle, 43. In general, if a thing is to be done within such a time after such a fact, the day of the fact shall be taken inclusively. Hob. 139; Doug. 463; 3 T. R. 623; Com. Dig. Temps, A; 3 East, 407.

3. The law, generally, rejects fractions of days, but in some cases it takes notice of such parts. 2 B. & A. 586. Vide Date.

4. By the custom of some places, the word day's is understood to be working days, and not including Sundays. 3 Espin. N. P. C. 121. Vide, generally, 2 Chit. Bl. 141, note 3; 1 Chit. Pr. 774, 775; 3 Chit. Pr. 110; Lill. Reg. h. t; 1 Rop. Leg. 518; 15 Vin. Ab. 554; Dig. 33, 1, 2; Dig. 50, 16, 2, 1; Id. 2, 12, 8; and articles Hour; Month; Year.