Aleatory Contracts

Civil Law. A mutual agreement, of which the effects, with respect both to the advantages and losses, whether to all the parties, or to some of them, depend on an uncertain event.

These contracts are of two kinds; namely, 1. When one of the parties exposes himself to lose something which will be a profit to the other, in consideration of a sum of money which the latter pays for the risk. Such is the contract of insurance; the insurer takes all the risk of the sea, and the assured pays a premium to the former for the risk which he runs.

In the second kind, each runs a risk which is the consideration of the engagement of the other; for example, when a person buys an annuity, he runs the risk of losing the consideration, in case of his death soon after, but he may live so as to receive three times the amount of the price he paid for it.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.