LENDER
LENDER, contracts. He from whom a thing is borrowed.
2. The contract of loan confers rights, and imposes duties on the lender. 1. The lender has the right to revoke the loan at his mere pleasure; 9 Cowen, R. 687; 8 Johns. Rep. 432; 1 T. R. 480; 2 Campb. Rep. 464; and is deemed the owner or proprietor of the thing during the period of the loan; so that au action for a trespass or conversion will lie in favor of the lender against a stranger, who has obtained a wrongful possession, or has made a wrongful conversion of the thing loaned; as mere gratuitous permission to a third person to use a chattel does not, in contemplation of the common law, take it out of the possession of the owner. 11 Johns. Rep. 285; 7 Cowen, Rep. 753; 9 Cowen, Rep. 687; 2 Saund. Rep. 47 b; 8 Johns. Rep. 432; 13 Johns. Rep. 141, 661; Bac. Abr. Trespass, c 2; Id. Trover, C 2. And in this the Civil agrees with the common law. Dig. 13, 6, 6, 8; Pothier, PrÇt Ö, Usage, ch. 1, §1, art. 2, n. 4; art. 3, n. 9; Ayliffe's Pand. B. 4, t. 16, p. 517; Domat, B. 1, t. 5, §1, n. 4; and so does the Scotch law. Ersk. Pr. Laws of Scotl. B. 3, t. 1 §8.
3. - 2. In the civil law, the first obligation on the part of the lender, is to suffer the borrower to use and enjoy the thing loaned during the time of the loan, according to the original intention. Such is not the doctrine of the common law. 9 Cowen, Rep. 687. The lender is obliged by the civil law to reimburse the borrower the extraordinary expenses to which he has been put for the preservation of the thing lent. And in such a case, the borrower would have a lien on the thing, and may detain it, until these extraordinary expenses are paid, and the lender cannot, even by an abandonment of the thing to the borrower, excuse himself from re-payment, nor is he excused by the subsequent loss of the thing by accident, nor by a restitution of it by the borrower, without insisting upon repayment. Pothier, PrÇt Ö Usage, ch. 3, n. 82, 83; Dig. 13, 6, 18, 4; Ersk. Pr. Laws of Scotl. B. 3, t. 1, §9. What would be decided at common law does not seem very clear. Story on Bailm. §274. Another case of implied obligation on the part of the lender by the civil law is, that he is bound to give notice to the borrower of the defects of the thing loaned; and if he does not and conceals them, and any injury occurs to the borrower thereby, the lender is responsible. Dig. 13, 6, 98, 3; Poth. PrÇt Ö Usage, n. 84; Domat, Liv. 1, t. 5, s. 3, n. 3. In the civil law there is also an implied obligation on the part of the lender where the thing has been lost by the borrower, and after he has paid the lender the value of it, the thing has been restored to the lender; in such case the lender must return to the borrower either the price or thing. Dig. 13, 6, 17, 5; Poth. Id. n. 85. "The common law seems to recognize the same principles, though," says Judge Story, Bailm. §276, "it would not perhaps be easy to cite a case on a gratuitous loan directly on the point." See Borrower; Commodate; Story, Bailm. ch. 4; Domat. Liv. 2, tit. 5; 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 1078, et seq.