Page 389 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER SEVEN
encumbrances on the thing sold than the French Code civil. First, as mentioned above, the general description of the duty of saneamiento distinguishes between a duty to safeguard from legal encumbrances on the object sold and eviction.272 Consequently, both duties receive a separate treatment. Eviction is expounded in articles 1475-1482 and liability for encumbrances in article 1483. The latter mentions a limitation period of one year for rescission or two years for compensation for damages, which specific limitation 'is not provided for in any other code', as Goyena remarks.273 The reason for its adoption was that a short limitation would give more certainty concerning the immovables' legal status than the long 10-year period which applies to eviction.274
7.6.4 Lesion beyond moiety (laesio enormis)
Castile had known a long tradition of statutes which had assigned an important place to the remedy for lesion beyond moiety. The Siete Partidas, perhaps the most influential statute in the long run, applied the remedy in its most extended version to the alienation of all objects, movables as well as immovables, and to both buyer and seller.275 Also in the Royal Chancery's 16th century jurisprudence the remedy appeared to be the number one remedy to attack a sales, no matter what facts had caused the discrepancy between price paid and thing received.276
This was still the case at the time Spain's codification project started. Since 1812, the highest appellate court of Spain277, the Tribunal supremo de justicia (Supreme Court) based its verdicts on the Novíssima Recopilación (1804), which statute provided for a remedy for lesion beyond moiety in its fullest form.278 Its 19th century case law prior to the Código's promulgation demonstrates the Court's acceptance of the remedy for lesion beyond moiety and the remarkable absence of the remedies for latent defects.279
272 Art. 1474 Código (≈ 1641 Cc).
273 Art. 1483 Código (≈ 1638 Cc): ...Durante un año, a contar desde el otorgamiento de la escritura, podrá el
comprador ejercitar la acción rescisoria o solicitar la indemnización. Transcurrido el año, sólo podrá reclamar la indemnización dentro de un período igual, a contar desde el día en que haya descubierto la carga o servidumbre...; Goyena, Concordancias, vol. 3, p. 395: 'En ninguno de los otros Códigos se halla prescrito término especial...'.
274 Goyena, Concordancias, vol. 3, p. 395, vol. 4, p. 324.
275 SP 5.5.56; Goyena, Concordancias, vol. 3, p. 178. See 3.4.4.
276 See 3.5.
277 <http://www.poderjudicial.es> tribunal supremo > información insitucional > Historia del TS > .
278 NR 10.1.2: Si el vendedor ó comprador de la cosa dixere, que fue engañado en mas de la mitad del
justo precio...mandamos que el comprador sea tenido de suplir el precio derecho que valia la cosa al tiempo que fue comprada, ó de la dexar al vendedor tornándole el precio que rescibió, y el vendedor debe tornar al comprador lo demas del derecho prescio que le llevó ó de tomar la cosa que vendió, y tornar el precio que recibió: y esto mismo debe ser guardado en las rentas y en los cambio, y en los otros contratos semejables; y que haya lugar esta ley en todos los contratos sobredichos, aunque se haga por almoneda del dia que hueren hechos fasta en quatro años, y no despues.
279 'Sentencias', in: Colección legislativa, 1863, no. 272, p. 922; idem, 1863, no. 282, p. 953; idem, 1864, vol. 1, no. 215, p. 742 (limitation of four years); idem, 1864, vol. 2, no. 29, p. 88 and no. 89, p. 298; idem, 1866, vol. 1, no. 280, p. 1067; idem, 1866, vol. 2, no. 140, p. 550 (This case reveals that the just price was determined by experts whose appointment was agreed on by both parties. 'recibido el pleito a prueba en 26 de Setiembre de dicho año 1864, por peritos de nombramiento de las partes se tasó en 29 Noviembre del mismo año... la casa en 7188 reales...'); idem, 1868, vol. 2, no. 125, p. 539; idem, 1869, vol. 1, no. 113, p. 550. In the latter cases cited, the Supreme Court considered the question whether
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