Page 184 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn
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LEGAL HUMANISM
A remedy for returning the thing involves a restoration of the parties' status to such as it was before the conclusion of the contract. This restitutio in integrum114 requires a preceding change of possession in the item, vid. that a seller has transferred his possession in the thing to the buyer. Otherwise a restitutio in integrum is without effect. In a lease contract, however, the lessee gains the enjoyment of the leased object, but nothing more than that. The lessor remains the owner and possessor. Consequently, according to Dumoulin, a restitutio in integrum and, consequently, a remedy for returning the thing, cannot take place in the course of a lease contract. With this argument he touches upon the legal peculiarity 'that anybody who actually has a thing may not possess it'.115 In lease, the person who exercises physical control over the leased thing only enjoys it. He cannot give it back, because the seller had never ceased to possess it.
However, Dumoulin's theory offers some room for exceptions. He admits that it is possible to say that in short-term lease there is no relevant change of legal status. However, if someone leases a house over a 30-year period in which the lessor cannot make any use whatsoever of the leased apartment, does not that create a factual situation awkwardly close to that which arises after a sale has been concluded? Dumoulin thought this was indeed the case. According to him, some lease contracts amount to a quasi- ownership (dominium utile) of the lessee in the object. Again Dumoulin repeats Baldus:
'\[9\] In emphyteusis there is room... because in that contract quasi ownership is transferred, C. 4.66.1... \[11\] The same opinion he \[Baldus\] holds for long-term lease, which opinion, I think, is right, since in such a lease quasi-ownership is transferred, see Cardinal Zabarella, Baldus'.116
In other words, if the lessee gains so much control over the thing that it boils down to
statum repositio, l. Facta.hoc tit. \[D. 21.1.60\] non mirum, si locatio in edictio non comprehenditur: quia cum rem non habeat, illam reddere non potest, l. Cum autem. §. iubent. hoc tit. \[D.21.1.23.1\]. Sed rei usum habere desinit, quam conducto accepit'.
114 Dumoulin refers to D. 21.1.60: Paulus libro 69 ad edictum: Facta redhibitione omnia in integrum restituuntur, perinde ac si neque emptio neque venditio intercessit, and to D. 21.1.23.1: Iubent aediles restitui et quod venditioni accessit et si quas accessiones ipse praestiterit, ut uterque resoluta emptione nihil amplius consequatur, quam non haberet, si venditio facta non esset \[my emphasis\].
115 Buckland, Roman Law and Common Law, p. 73.
116 Molinaeus, De aedilitiis actionibus, 2.9, no. 11, p. 200; '\[9\] In emphyteusis habere locum (...) quia ex ea
transfertur dominium utile, l.j.C. de iu. emphy... \[11\] Idem existimat in locatione ad longum tempus, quod credo verum, quia ex ea transfertur utile dominium, Card. Zab. Clem. j. § fin, de reb. eccle. alie. \[Zabarella, Super clementinis, to Clem. 3.9.2, fo. 212ff.\], Bald. in auth. & qui. C. de bon. bon. auth. iud, poss. \[Baldus, Commentaria, vol. 4, to. C. 11.62.12, p. 285\], Alex. consi. I, lib. 4, \[Tartagnus, Consilia, vol. 4, cons. 1, p. 3seq.\], Corne. consi. 243, lib. 3 \[?\]'; similarly, Schrader, Commentarius, ch. 24, no. 112: ´Et datur non tantum in contractu venditionis, sed et in omnibus aliis contractibus onerosis, per quos dominium in accipientem transfertur, sive illi contractus sint bonae fidei, sivi stricti iuris, Bald. l. 2, no. 6. et 7 C. de aedil. action. \[Baldus, Commentaria, to C. 4.44.2, nos. 9 and 10, fo 132\] Pro illis autem contractibus, qui sunt vel gratuiti, l. ad res. ff. de aedil. edict. \[D. 21.1.62\] vel per quos dominium in accipientem non transfertur, haec actio non datur, l. sciendum. l. ult. ff. de aedil. edict. \[D. 21.1.63\]'; idem, p. 25, no. 37: 'Redhibitoria etiam actione emphyteuta contra dominum experiri potest, si dominus ipsi fundum pestilentes herbas producentem in emphyteusin concesserit, Bald. l. 2, C. de aedil. edict. \[Baldus, Commentaria, to C. 4.44.2, fo 132\], Iason, d. l. fin., no. 71, C. de iure emphyteut. to C. 4.66 \[Mayno, De iure emphyteutico, q. 71, col. 56\]'.
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