Page 203 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER FOUR
Doneau gives another sweep to explaining the dogmatic starting points underlying
the remedy for lesion beyond moiety, which interpretation perhaps cuts more ice than
Cujas'. According to Doneau, the remedy is not based on dolus or fraud, but on error.
Selling for less than half the thing's value or buying a thing for one and a half times its just
value does not presume bad behaviour on the side that benefits but it presumes that the
duped party had erroneously entered into the sales contract. Doneau thus embroiders on a
theme already presented by Bartolus and early modern Castilian scholastics.
unlike these, Doneau sees no need for the duped party to prove that he had erred. That is
193
proven by the situation itself. Doneau thus turns dolus in re ipsa into error in re ipsa.
However,
194 We
will see that later scholars continued this line of thinking when they try to position the remedy for lesion beyond moiety dogmatically in a framework of safeguarding duties for sellers.
4.3.2 Limitation periods
In keeping with the Gloss, Oldendorp, Sichardus and Giphanius consider the remedy for lesion beyond moiety perpetual, because it is of civil provenance.195 Dumoulin refers to a statute issued in 1512 by Louis XII in which a 10-year period is prescribed.196 Automne mentions the same statute but assigns it the date of 1510.197
According to Cujas, however, the remedy for lesion beyond moiety has to be brought within four years. The remedy involves a restoration of the parties to their former state (restitutio in integrum) to which the 14th century Byzantine jurist Harmenopoulos attached a four year limitation period.198 By adopting Harmenopoulos' limitation, Cujas rejects the French statute mentioned above. Again this is a sign of the scholar's strict
nec locatio, si absit dolus et in pretio emptionis licet se invicem circumscribere, l. in causae 2, § pen. de min. ἐμπορακῶς, ut ait Nov. 97, c. 1 \[N. 97.1\]; \[376 B\] Non tamen rescinditur venditio praetextu vilioris pretii, nisi ea fraus superet dimidium justi pretii...'; Wesenbeck also uses the term fraus instead of dolus. See Wesenbecius, Tractatus et responsa, vol. 5, cons. 250, no. 4, p. 1558: 'ex immodico pretio ac profusione fraus praesumitur... Nec enim quisquam praesumitur libenter jactare suum'.
193 See 2.3.2.1 and 3.4.1.
194 Donellus, Ad codicis partes, to C. 4.44.2, no. 10, p. 206: '... placet eum \[sc. Bartolus\] admitti ad
rescindendam venditionem sive confirmationem venditionis eius, sed ita, si duo concurrant, nempe si minoris res distracta sit, et praetera si iusto errore deceptus emtionem ratam habuerit. Sed male movetur eo loco... Quinimmo etsi exigeremus, tamen probari non oporteret ab eo, qui probat se vendidisse dimidia iusti pretii minoris. Etenim qui ita vendit, eum necesse est, aut errore fecisse, aut donare voluisse, quod ultra est. Donare voluisse non creditur, quia nemo existimatur facile iactare suum, l. cum de indebito, D. de prob. \[D. 22.3.25pr.\]. Restat ergo, ut hoc ipso existimetur errore vendidisse'.
195 Oldendorp, Progymnasmata, p. 252 \[right column\]: 'Perpetuo autem conceduntur, quia civiles sunt'; Sichardus, Dictata, to C. 4.58.2, no. 9, p. 462: '...dicendum est actionem ex contractu bonae fidei et perpetuo, id est, 30. annis competer'; for the periods prescribed in medieval ius commune see 2.3.2.2; Giphanius, Explanatio, to C. 4.44, p. 315 \[right column\]: 'Vulgo obtinuit emptionem ex h.l. 2 \[C. 4.44.2\] rescindi non remedio restitutionis in integrum, sed actione ex empto aut venditio, quae probabilior est sententia'.
196 Molinaeus, Commentarii, 1.13.5, no. 57, p. 264.
197
198 Harmenopoulos, Hexabiblos, 3.3, no. 71, pp. 362-363. 193
Automne, Conférence, vol. 2,
to C. 4.44.2, p. 214: 'Ordonnons que toutes rescissions... ou autre actes
quelconques, fondée sur dol... ou deception d'outre moité de iuste prix, se prescriront, tant en nos pars Coustumiers, que de Droict escrit, par l'espace de dix ans continuels, à compter du iour que lesdits
Contracts... auront esté faits'.