1 Thus, if one man has managed the business of another during the latter's absence, each can sue the other by the action on uncommissioned agency; the direct action being available to him whose business was managed, the contrary action to him who managed it. It is clear that these actions cannot properly be said to originate in a contract, for their peculiarity is that they lie only where one man has come forward and managed the business of another without having received any commission so to do, and that other is thereby laid under a legal obligation even though he knows nothing of what has taken place. The reason of this is the general convenience; otherwise people might be summoned away by some sudden event of pressing importance, and without commissioning any one to look after and manage their affairs, the result of which would be that during their absence those affairs would be entirely neglected: and of course no one would be likely to attend to them if he were to have no action for the recovery of any outlay he might have incurred in so doing. Conversely, as the uncommissioned agent, if his management is good, lays his principal under a legal obligation, so too he is himself answerable to the latter for an account of his management; and herein he must show that he has satisfied the highest standard of carefulness, for to have displayed such carefulness as he is wont to exercise in his own affairs is not enough, if only a more diligent person could have managed the business better. 2 Guardians, again, who can be sued by the action on guardianship, cannot properly be said to be bound by contract, for there is no contract between guardian and ward: but their obligation, as it certainly does not originate in delict, may be said to be quasicontractual. In this case too each party has a remedy against the other: not only can the ward sue the guardian directly on the guardianship, but the guardian can also sue the ward by the contrary action of the same name, if he has either incurred any outlay in managing the ward's property, or bound himself on his behalf, or pledged his own property as security for the ward's creditors. 3 Again, where persons own property jointly without being partners, by having, for instance, a joint bequest or gift made to them, and one of them is liable to be sued by the other in a partition suit because he alone has taken its fruits, or because the plaintiff has laid out money on it in necessary expenses: here the defendant cannot properly be said to be bound by contract, for there has been no contract made between the parties; but as his obligation is not based on delict, it may be said to be quasicontractual. 4 The case is exactly the same between joint heirs, one of whom is liable to be sued by the other on one of these grounds in an action for partition of the inheritance.