Page 324 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn
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SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY NATURAL LAW
that that which he lacks will be supplemented'.197
Yet, a minor shift in the approach to justice in contracts appears with Wolff. He
makes the demand of fairness in exchange depend on the will of the contracting parties. As the seller is owner of the object he wants to sell and the buyer of the money he wants to spend, both are free to determine under what conditions they would like to do so. 'In the contract of sale, it depends solely on the will of the contracting parties whether or not they want to observe fairness in exchange'.198
Nevertheless, it is required that parties agree not to have the contract governed by the natural law requirement of fairness in exchange. There must be strong reasons for parties to do so. Thus, according to Wolff, by default a sale still has to answer to natural equity expressed in a fair price for the item.199
Vitriarius' in his Institutiones again harks back to the views of Grotius and Pufendorf.200 In his commentaries to Grotius' De iure belli ac pacis he leaves the estimation of a thing's just price to a third party, not to the parties to the contract themselves.
'The judge or an honourable man shall determine how much the laesio must be here, taking into account the height of the price and the thing's value in accordance with what right reason dictates them to be equitable'.201
It has been earlier observed that Heineccius accepted that contracts in general are governed by the requirement of equality. Not only in sales, but in all contracts in which both parties have to perform should mutual performances be in proportion.202
In sum, fairness in exchange is fully maintained in 17th and 18th century natural law doctrine as a concept for determining whether or not onerous contracts can be qualified as just.
6.3.1 How to restore a breach of fairness in exchange?
Another question is whether or not the remedy for lesion beyond moiety is the preferred way to ensure fairness in exchange. Early modern Castilian theologians favoured that remedy because a defect in a thing sold did not necessarily mean a breach of fairness in
197 Pufendorf, De iure naturae, 5.3.1, p. 622: 'Habent hoc omnes contractus onerosi...., ut in illis versari debeat aequalitas, seu ut uterque tandundem nanciscatur et ubi inaequalitas intervenerit, alteri qui minus accepit, ius nascatur ad postulandum, ut suppleatur, quod sibi deest';
198 Wolff, Ius naturae, vol. 4, § 975, p. 671: 'in emtione venditione a contrahentium unice voluntate pendet, utrum aequalitatem observare velint, nec ne'; Klempt, Grundlagen, p. 45.
199 Wolff, Ius naturae, vol. 4, § 976, p. 671: 'In emtione venditione is animus esse videtur contrahentibus, ut observetur aequalitas, nisi adsint rationes fortes in contrarium'; Klempt, Grundlagen, p. 46.
200 Vitriarius, Institutiones, 2.12.8, p. 281: '... contractus inter homines ineuntur, ut pro re vel opera aliquid aequipollens recipiant, quod ob certas causas expetunt possidere potius, quam rem suam retinere, aut opera supersedere, ius naturae, ut et in domino semel introducto, aequalitatem imperat, ita ut ex inaequalitate ius oriatur minus habenti'.
201 Vitriarius, Institutiones, 2.12.16, p. 286: 'Quanta autem hic debeat esse laesio, judex aestimabit, vel vir bonus, ex ipsa pretii magnitudine et rei valore, secundum id, quod aequum esse ipsis recta ratio dictat'.
202 Heineccius, Praelectiones, to Grotius' IBP, 2.12.8-12, pp. 291-293, and 2.12.19, p. 299: \[2.12.19\] 'At si res ordinariae et ubivis obviae, vel operae illiberales locantur: tunc aequalitas et proportio inter rem et mercedem observanda... Unde et locationem conductionem ius civile rescindit ob laesionem ultra dimidium l. 2. C. de resc. vendit. \[C. 4.44.2\].'.
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