With the delegation of duties, each of the parties, including the party to whom the delegation was made, maintains certain rights and liabilities with regard to the contract.

As to the party who delegates his or her duties (i.e the delegator), he or she will remain liable on the contract. This means that if the party you delegated to perform your task does not do so, you will be liable to the other party to the contract. Depending on the type of contract, you may be required to pay damages, or you may be required to simply perform your duty. Regardless, you will still be liable.

As the delegatee (e.g. person receiving the duty to delegate from another person, i.e. the delegator), your liability under a simple delegation is minimal. The other party to the contract cannot compel you to perform the duties required. If you fail to perform, the original party to the contract will be liable to the party who was expecting some type of performance. This situation is slightly different if the task was delegated to you and you were given ample consideration (some form of payment for your work). Under these circumstances, the other party to the contract can compel you to perform, and failure to do so on your party could result in having to pay damages or rectify the situation accordingly.

Lastly, as the party to the contract who is neither the person delegating the duties nor the person to whom the duties were delegated, your situation is fairly simple: as long as those duties were delegable duties (in other words, they don’t fall under any of the exceptions explained above), you must accept performance from the delegate.

Finally, let’s wrap up this article with some main points to keep in mind.