Short answer. If your obligation lets you choose among alternatives and the other party's own acts have made that choice impossible, Article 1203 of the Civil Code lets you rescind the contract with damages. You are not left stuck honoring an agreement the other side itself made unworkable for you.
What the law says
If through the creditor's acts the debtor cannot make a choice according to the terms of the obligation, the latter may rescind the contract with damages.
Civil Code, Article 1203 — Creditor's Acts Preventing Choice. Read the full provision →
The rule in Article 1203
Article 1203 provides that if through the creditor's acts the debtor cannot make a choice according to the terms of the obligation, the latter may rescind the contract with damages. This applies to alternative obligations — agreements where the debtor is entitled to choose among two or more ways of performing. If the creditor's own conduct takes that choice away, the debtor is not simply stuck; the debtor may rescind the contract, and recover damages besides.
What "through the creditor's acts" means
The article is specific about cause: the impossibility of choosing has to come from something the creditor did — obstructing, destroying an option, or otherwise interfering — not from an outside event or the debtor's own doing. If the choice became impossible for reasons unrelated to the creditor's conduct, this particular remedy under Article 1203 does not apply in the same way. The premise matters as much as the cause: the article assumes the right of choice belongs to the debtor. Where the parties expressly gave the creditor the right to select which prestation would be performed, the situation Article 1203 addresses does not arise at all. Nor does the interference have to destroy every alternative. The test in the text is that the debtor cannot make a choice according to the terms of the obligation, so conduct that leaves the debtor able to choose only on terms the agreement never set is already enough.
The remedy: rescission plus damages
The debtor's remedy here is twofold — rescinding the contract, so the debtor is released from continuing to perform under an agreement the creditor has undermined, and recovering damages for the loss that resulted. This puts the burden of the creditor's interference back on the creditor, rather than leaving the debtor bound to an obligation whose terms the creditor's own actions made unworkable. Note the verb: the article says the debtor may rescind, not that the contract is undone by itself. Rescission is an option the debtor holds, not a consequence that follows automatically, and a debtor who would rather keep the agreement alive and perform through whatever option remains is not forced to abandon it. Damages are additional to rescission rather than a substitute for it — the text grants both in the same breath.
What you would need to show
To rely on Article 1203, you would need to establish that your obligation genuinely gave you a choice among alternatives, and that the other party's specific acts — not chance or your own conduct — are what prevented you from exercising it. Document what the agreement allowed you to choose and exactly what the other party did that closed off that option, and bring that record to a lawyer before deciding to rescind. Dates matter as much as content: when the option was still open, and when the other party's act closed it.