condition
noun · Bedingung
Bedingung for a future uncertain event a legal effect hangs on, aufschiebend or auflösend, § 158 BGB, but the English condition also means an essential contract term whose breach lets the other side terminate, and German has no condition-and-warranty ranking of terms, breach severity routes through Pflichtverletzung, § 323 BGB, instead. Condition covers two ideas German keeps apart.
Which translation, when
Why
Condition carries two meanings and German splits them. The first is die Bedingung, a future uncertain event on which a legal effect depends, aufschiebende Bedingung suspending the effect until the event occurs, auflösende Bedingung ending it if the event occurs, § 158 BGB, a clean match. The second is the common-law sense of condition as a class of contract term, the essential term whose breach lets the innocent party terminate, opposed to a warranty whose breach sounds only in damages, and here German has no equivalent hierarchy. German does not sort terms into conditions and warranties, it asks how serious the breach is, a material Pflichtverletzung opening Rücktritt, § 323 BGB, or damages under § 280, so calling a clause a condition in the English sense imports a term-ranking German law does not run. The condition precedent of English drafting is again die aufschiebende Bedingung or a Vollzugsvoraussetzung in a transaction, not a species of term. So condition must be read for which idea is meant, the event or the essential term, and translating the term-sense as a Bedingung confuses a clause’s importance with a suspensive event, while translating the event-sense as a Vertragspflicht loses the conditionality entirely.
Typical mistakes
- German has no condition-and-warranty ranking of terms, breach severity decides, a material Pflichtverletzung opening Rücktritt, § 323 BGB, so labelling a clause a condition in the English sense imports a hierarchy German contract law does not use.
- Bedingung is a future uncertain event, § 158 BGB, not a class of term, so rendering an essential-term condition as a Bedingung confuses a clause’s importance with a suspensive event.
- A condition precedent is die aufschiebende Bedingung or a Vollzugsvoraussetzung, § 158 BGB, so the drafting sense is an event that must occur, not a term whose breach terminates.
What matters
Contract drafting splits the word: a condition precedent is die aufschiebende Bedingung, an event that must occur, § 158 BGB, while a clause called a condition to allow termination has no German term-ranking and must be recast as a material breach opening Rücktritt, § 323 BGB. The clause labelled a condition for its importance has assumed a hierarchy German law decides by breach severity instead.
What the machine misses
Condition comes back as Bedingung in machine output for both its senses, and German keeps them apart, die Bedingung is a future uncertain event a legal effect hangs on, § 158 BGB, while the English condition as an essential term whose breach permits termination has no German counterpart at all. So a clause called a condition to justify walking away is rendered as a suspensive event, and the term-ranking behind the English word, condition against warranty, disappears into a Bedingung that says nothing about how serious a breach must be.
Examples
| condition precedent | die aufschiebende Bedingung |
| resolutive condition | die auflösende Bedingung |
| subject to the condition that | unter der Bedingung, dass |
| conditions and warranties | die Vertragsbestimmungen |
More notes on these sections
termination Kündigung
rescission Anfechtung
time is of the essence Fixgeschäft