Page 352 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CODES OF CIVIL LAW
Natur und der Inhalt des Contracts mit sich bringen, bedienen könne'.64
Gewährleistung entails the safeguarding of promised qualities of the thing, of qualities the thing normally possesses, of third-party claims, and of unusual encumbrances or encumbrances of which the absence has been explicitly guaranteed.65 Thus, the in ius commune hitherto separately arranged liabilities for latent defects, encumbrances, and eviction are merged into one overarching concept.66 This overarching concept of Gewährleistung also harmonises the limitation of all instances of Gewährleistung, so that remedies for eviction, defects, and encumbrances have to be brought within the same time period.67
In sum, the allgemeine Landrecht is radical in its merging of the various ius commune-rules into single concepts from which the liabilities in particular contracts can be deduced. For some, in doing so, the ALR exceeded all limits. Concerning the liability of the promisor Christian Friedrich Koch (1798-1872), legal scholar and judge to the Oberlandesgericht of Breslau, sighs that 'alles das findet sich im L.R. ohne alle Unterscheidung zusammengeworfen. Daher die Unbestimmtheiten, die Unsicherheit der Praxis und die Meinungsverschiedenheiten'.68 I explore later to what extent Koch's remark is pertinent in particular with regard to the periods of limitation within which the recipient has to bring a remedy for breach of Gewährleistung or non-performance.
7.2.3 Limitation periods
Most usus modernus scholars adhered to the short aedilician limitation periods when it came to remedies for latent defects.69 That this view was still present in the German regions at the time Frederic II's codification project had started, can be gathered from Glück's commentary on the Digest.70 A remedy of rescission because of a latent defect lasted for six months, irrespective of whether the contractual or aedilician remedy was brought. The remedy for price reduction lived for one year. Glück argues along traditional lines, explaining that C. 4.58.2 in which the Roman Emperor could not envisage a remedy after one year had lapsed offers no room for a 30-year duration of the remedy on the sales contract.71 Schmid adheres to the same ideas.72
Thibaut reaches the same conclusion via another argument. He accepts the division between the action on the contract's perpetual life as opposed to the aedilician remedies'
64 Svarez & Gossler, Unterricht, 2.5, § 41, p. 106-107.
65 Ibidem, p. 107.
66 Leske, Vergleichende Darstellung, vol. 1, § 60, p. 193.
67 Svarez & Gossler, Unterricht, 2.5, § 44, p. 107-108.
68 Koch, Allgemeines Landrecht, note 59 to § 317, p. 333; for biographical details see J. Rückert, 'Rückert,
Joachim, 'Koch, Christian Friedrich', in: NDB 12 (1979), pp. 257-260.
69 Here Stryk poses a notable exception. See 6.2.1.4.
70 Glück, Ausführliche Erläuterung (first ed. 1819), 20.1, § 1113, pp. 153-155.
71 Ibidem, p. 153: 'Wird auf Rescission des Contracts geklagt, und zwar a) auf Zurücknahme der Sache
wegen eines dazu geeigneten Fehlers derselben, so dauert die Klage nur 6 Monate, es mag aus dem Edict, mit der actio redhibitoria oder aus dem Contract, mit der actio emti geklagt werden'; Idem, Ausführliche Erläuterung, 20.1, § 1113, p. 155.
72 Schmidt, Practisches Lehrbuch (first ed. 1786), § 941, note i, p. 498. 348