Page 142 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER THREE
raises objections against witnesses who are not necessarily experts. As witnesses are prone to estimate a thing's value by their personal feelings, judges should not simply agree with what a majority of witnesses thinks is the just price. Despite what various witnesses tell, a judge still has to take efforts to sort out the thing's price according to the common estimation of man.283 Yet, similar concerns do not seem to have lived with Piñel, who introduces the plain rule that judges should take the view of the majority of witnesses.284
Oñate explicitly refutes that the just price is that which the buyer is willing to pay or the seller willing to ask. Among other things, that principle thwarts the state's prerogative to fix a legitimate price. Early modern states fix prices, for example for grain, ideally in an impartial manner. Oñate sees this prerogative as a means to have goods distributed on the market in a manner free from any recklessness or greed of contracting parties. Leaving the price determination to the parties all that would come to nought. Furthermore, the freedom to parties to determine the goods' price, would entice merchants to feed on the buyer's fortune, in particular when selling goods for the fulfilment of the buyers' basic needs. Hence, Oñate abides by the rule that if there exists no legitimate or commonly accepted price, parties can establish a price, but not whichever price they like.285 They have to take into account the thing's natural price.286 The thing's natural price on its turn has to be determined by a vast array of criteria, such as whether the sold goods are rare or abundantly available, and what costs, labour, craftsmanship and risk are involved in producing or importing the goods.287
3.4.3.1 Legal practice
In the practice of the Royal Chancery of Valladolid the assessment of a thing's just price is that price which is commonly accepted for it at the time the sale is concluded. This may be illustrated by means of a case which dragged on from 1573 to 1577 between Francisco de Castañeda and Juan Cazorla. Cazorla demands that the Chancery free him from the sale
283 Azevedo, Commentarii, to Nueva Recopilación 5.11.1, no. 13, p. 344: 'cum ergo testis non se referat ad communem aestimationem et se possit referre ad singularem affectionem...'.
284 Pinelus, Ad rubricam, to C. 4.44.2, 2, 4.10, p. 491: 'Si ex testibus unus diceret, rem valere centum, duo autem centum et viginti, staretur testimonio duorum, argum. l. fin., C. de fideicom. \[C. 6.42.32pr.\]'.
285 Oñate, De contractibus, disp. 63.5, no. 34, 40 p. 41-42: 'Et probatur evidenti ratione, quia alias frustra pretia rerum taxarentur in republica. Secundo, quia pretia rerum taxarentur ex naturali ratione attentis... non ex temeraria negotiantum et contrahentium avaritiae inhiantum... Tertio quia daretur ansa avaris mercatoribus grassandi in fortunas ementium, maxime quando emunt adacti rerum necessitate... Quaere haec opinio omnino vera et amplectenda est et contraria omnino explodenda tamquam continens intolerabilem errorem in materia morali et omnem doctrinam huius contractus emptionis et venditionis subvertens. \[40\] Sit ergo prima regula posita et constitutissima in his, quae damus pro iis, quae non sunt attenda ad iustum pretium in emptionibus constituendum, esse vitiosam et reprobatam regulam rem tantum valere, quanti vendi potest etiam in pretio conventionali'.
286 Oñate, De contractibus, disp. 63.5, no. 21, p. 38: 'qui illud pretium constituunt non possunt temere, quodcumque libitum fuerit taxare: sed tam principes et magistratus, quando pretium legate taxant, quam qui in repub. illud consuetudine et usus introducunt, quam contrahentes, quando ad eos pertinet pretium constituere debent pretium naturale attendere: idest quod in casu illo et modo vendendi ratio naturalis attentis citrcumstantiis occurrentibus, praescribit: ut de singulis pretiis postea probabimus'.
287 Oñate, De contractibus, disp. 63, dub. 3, p. 44: 'Quae attenda sint in recta aestimatione praetii communis. \[63\] Copia, vel inopia mercium..., \[67\] Attendenda est indigentia illius mercis in repub. \[68\] Quinta Regula perpendenda maxime sunt expensa, labores, industria et pericula'.
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