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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 debtor gives and the creditor agrees to receive a movable or immovable.

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 mere 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 precisely 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.