Page 38 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER TWO
applied to slaves, unless the slave is a runaway or a vagabond or committed a capital crime or committed suicide or unless a non-corporeal defect said to be absent is present ...'.9
In other instances, the civil remedy was not available. D. 19.1.13.1 excludes the use of the civil remedy against a seller who had unknowingly sold a slave prone to stealing. D. 19.1.21.1 states the same for a seller of provincial land of which he was aware that it was encumbered with property taxes.10 From these texts, Azo draws some inferences:
'Pay heed that in civil law you cannot sue for redhibitio because of corporeal defects. You have to sue for your full losses or for a price reduction, either on the contract, or because of a warranty given, as happens with cattle or slaves. Yet, it is possible to start civil law proceedings because of a non- corporeal defect in case of a runaway slave, but not in case of a slave inclined to steal and neither in case of provincial land liable for taxes, as I indicated above, D. 19.1.13(14)'.11
So, according to Azo, the civil actio ex empto for rescission is not available for corporeal defects. Furthermore, both the civil actio ex empto for rescission and the one for price reduction do not apply to the non-corporeal 'defect' of being inclined to steal or provincial land burdened with taxes.12 Azo explains the exception for sellers of thieves and taxed provincial land as follows. Every man should be aware that slaves are prone to steal and that provincial land is taxed with a tributum.13
Contrariwise, D. 21.1.4.3 grants aedilician remedies where the 'thing' sold is a
9
10 D.19.1.13.1 (thief); D. 19.1.21.(22)1 (tributum).
11 Hallebeek, 'The ignorant seller's liability', p. 192; Azo, gloss to D. 21.1.19.2: 'Et caue tibi quia propter
corporis morbosi non agebat ut de iure ciuili ad redhibitionem, set ad interesse, uel quanto minoris, uel ex contractu, uel ex cautione, ut in pecore morboso et seruo. Set propter uitium animi in seruo fugitiuo agebatur de iure ciuili, non in seruo fure, nec predio tributario, ut notaui supra de act. emp. Iulianus \[D 19.1.13(14)\]'. Note that here Azo seems to rule out the aedilician actio redhibitoria for runaway slaves, while he accepts it in his Suma to C. 4.58, quoted above.
12 Azo, Summa Theol., to C. 4.58, no. 31; Dilcher, Leistungsstörungen, p. 218; Hallebeek,'The Ignorant Seller's Liability', p. 192, note 48.
13 Hallebeek, 'The Ignorant Seller's Liability', p. 192.
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Azo, Summa Theol., to C. 4.58, no. 12: 'Vitium autem solius animi iumentis forte inducit redhibitionem, D. 21.1.1.1 et l. 43, sed in servis non inducit redhibitionem: nisi servus sit fugitivus vel erro, vel capitalem fraudem commisit, vel mortem sibi consciscit, vel nisi animi vitium dictum sit abesse et adest...'; Dilcher, Leistungsstörungen, p. 230; likewise Placentinus, Cum essem, p. 58, no. 244.