Short answer. Yes, within limits. Under Article 1726 of the Civil Code, where a contractor engaged for his personal qualifications cannot finish the work due to circumstances beyond his control, the owner must pay — in proportion to the agreed price — for the part of the work done and the materials prepared, provided those materials benefit him.
What the law says
The same rule shall apply if the contractor cannot finish the work due to circumstances beyond his control.
Civil Code, Article 1726 — Death of a Contractor Chosen for Personal Qualifications. Read the full provision →
When this rule applies
Article 1726 addresses a specific kind of contract: work entrusted to a person by reason of his personal qualifications — where the owner hired this particular contractor for his own skill, artistry or reputation, not just any competent hand. The article's leading case is the contractor's death, which rescinds such a contract because the very person the owner bargained for is gone. Its final line then extends the same treatment to your situation: the same rule shall apply if the contractor cannot finish the work due to circumstances beyond his control. So an honest inability to complete — not a walk-off or a breach — is placed on the same footing as death for payment purposes.
What the owner must pay for
The measure of payment is set by the article and is deliberately partial. The proprietor pays in proportion to the price agreed upon, the value of the part of the work done, and of the materials prepared. In other words, the contractor (or, on death, his heirs) is compensated for what was actually accomplished and for the materials made ready — valued against the contract price, not by some separate rate. The contractor is not left empty-handed for genuine work performed before the interruption, but neither is he paid the full contract price for a job he did not finish. The award tracks the fraction of the whole that was completed.
The materials must benefit the owner
There is an important condition on the materials. The owner pays for prepared materials only provided the latter yield him some benefit. Materials that are useless to the owner — that he cannot incorporate, use or salvage because the work stopped — do not have to be paid for. This keeps the rule fair to the owner: he is charged for value he actually receives, not for materials that are of no use to his project once the contractor drops out. So a contractor claiming under this article should be ready to show not just that materials were prepared, but that they are of some real benefit to the owner.
The limits of this article
Article 1726 is confined to contracts based on the contractor's personal qualifications; an ordinary contract not resting on such personal skill may be governed by different rules on interruption and payment. "Circumstances beyond his control" also means a genuine external impediment, not a change of mind or a difficulty the contractor should have shouldered — a claim that fails this test is really about breach, which the article does not cover. The provision fixes the payment principle but does not resolve disputes over how much of the work was truly done, how to value it, or whether materials genuinely benefit the owner, so a serious disagreement on those points is worth taking to counsel.