Short answer. Generally yes. Where a debt to return a specific, determinate thing arises from a criminal offense, the debtor is not exempted from paying its price whatever the cause of the loss — including an accident — unless the debtor offered to return the thing and the owner refused without justification.
What the law says
When the debt of a thing certain and determinate proceeds from a criminal offense, the debtor shall not be exempted from the payment of its price, whatever may be the cause for the loss, unless the thing having been offered by him to the person who should receive it, the latter refused without justification to accept it.
Civil Code, Article 1268 — Loss of a Thing Arising From a Crime. Read the full provision →
This rule specifically covers obligations arising from a crime
The statute addresses the situation where a debt to deliver or return a thing certain and determinate — a specific, identifiable item, not merely something generic — proceeds from a criminal offense. Where property was taken through a crime, the obligation to return it is treated differently from an ordinary civil obligation between parties who dealt with each other in good faith.
Liability survives even a fortuitous loss
The rule is unusually strict: the debtor is not exempted from the payment of its price, whatever may be the cause for the loss. In an ordinary obligation, a debtor who loses the thing through a fortuitous event — an accident beyond their control — is often excused. This provision removes that excuse where the underlying debt arose from a crime: even an accidental, unforeseen destruction does not relieve the debtor of the duty to pay the thing's price.
The one narrow exception
There is a single way out described in the article: if the debtor had already offered the thing to the person entitled to receive it, and that person refused without justification to accept it, the debtor is exempted. This exception exists because, at that point, any subsequent loss is no longer attributable to the debtor's wrongdoing — the debtor tried to make things right and the rightful owner unjustifiably declined to take the property back.
Why the law is stricter here
This heightened liability reflects that the debt did not arise from an ordinary transaction where both parties accepted some shared risk — it arose from a wrong committed against the owner. The law responds by making the wrongdoer bear essentially all risk of loss going forward, rather than letting an unlucky, purely accidental turn of events that happens to strike after the crime shift that risk back onto the innocent victim of the original offense.