What is GRATUITOUS AND ONEROUS

Gratuitous contracts are those of which the object is the benefit of the person with whom it is made, without any profit or advantage received or promised as a consideration for it. It is not, however, the less gratuitous if it proceed either from gratitude for a benefit before received or from the hope of receiving one hereafter, although such benefit be of a pecuniary nature. Onerous contracts are those in which something is given or promised as a consideration for the engagement or gift, or some service, interest, or condition is imposed on given or promised, although unequal to it in value. Civ. Code La. 1700, 1707; Penitentiary Co. v. Nelms, 05 Ga. 505, 38 Am. Rep. 793. Mutual interest, mixed, etc. Contracts of “mutual interest” are such as are entered into for the reciprocal interest and utility of each of the parties; as sales, exchange, partnership , and the like. “Mixed” contracts are those by which one of the parties confers a benefit on the other, receiving something of inferior value in return, such as a donation subject to a charge. Contracts “of beneficence” are those by which only one of the contracting parties is benefited ; as loans, deposit and mandate. Poth. Obi. 1, 1, 1, 2. A conditional contract is an executory contract the performance of which depends upon a condition. It is not simply an executory contract , since the latter may be an absolute agreement to do or not to do something, but it is a contract whose very existence and performance depend upon a contingency . Railroad Co. v. Jones, 2 Cold. (Tenn.) 584; French v. Osmer, 67 Vt. 427, 32 Atl. 254. Constructive contracts are such as arise when the law prescribes the rights and liabilities of persons who have not in reality entered into a contract at all. but between whom circumstances make it just that one should have a right, and the other be subject to a liability, similar to the rights and liabilities in eases of express contract . Wickham v. Weil (Com. I’l.) 17 N. Y. Supp. 518: Graham v. Cummings, 208 Pa. 516, 57 Atl. 943; Robinson v. Turrentine (C. C.) 59 Fed. 559; Hertzog v. Ilertzog, 29 Pa. 465