German Civil Code, section 826. One who wilfully brings about damage to another in a manner running counter to good morals is bound to make reparation to the other for the damage.
Stammler, Lehre von dem richtigen Rechte, 489–490. “I am walking along the bank of a river,” says Liszt in his stimulating discussion of this subject, “and I see a man fall in the water and struggle with the waves. I am able to rescue him without any peril to myself; I neglect to do so although other help is not at hand and I foresee that he must drown. In my opinion, liability under section 826 cannot be denied.” [Liszt, Die Deliktsobligationen des B. G. B., 72.] Surely not.
Planck, Bürgerliches GesetzbucH (3d ed.), II, 995 (§ 826, note e). The duty to make reparation for damage under section 826 may also be grounded upon an omission. But it is presupposed that the act which was omitted must be regarded, under the circumstances of the case, as commanded by good morals and that the omission took place with the purpose of bringing about injury to the other. If one holds fast to this, the consequences which result from the foregoing principle are not as doubtful as Liszt (p. 72) seems to assume.
Bentham, Complete Works (Bowring’s ed.) I, 164.
There is simple corporal injury, when, without lawful cause, an individual, seeing another in danger, abstains from helping him, and the evil happens in consequence.
Explanations:—Abstains from helping him.
Every man is bound to assist those who have need of assistance, if he can do it without exposing himself to sensible inconvenience. This obligation is stronger in proportion as the danger is the greater for the one, and the trouble of preserving him the less for the other. Such would be the case of a man sleeping near the fire, and an individual seeing the clothes of the first catch fire, and doing nothing towards extinguishing them: the crime would be greater if he refrained from acting not simply from idleness, but from malice or some pecuniary interest.
Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. xix, sec. 1, Par. xix (Clarendon Press reprint, pp. 322–323).
As to the rules of beneficence, these, as far as concerns matters of detail, must necessarily be abandoned in great measure to the jurisdiction of private ethics....
The limits of the law on this head seem, however, to be capable of being extended a good deal farther than they seem ever to have been extended hitherto. In particular, in cases where the person is in danger, why should it not be made the duty of every man to save another from mischief, when it can be done without prejudicing himself, as well as to abstain from bringing it on him. This accordingly is the idea pursued in the body of the work.[[119]]