Page 100 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER THREE
contractual fairness.
According to Aquinas, divine law considers all prices asked or offered for an item
falling within the latitude of the just price as just. All those asked or offered beyond the just price-range are forbidden. However, positive law (lex humana populo datur) is less demanding. Not all men are equally virtuous, so that it only prohibits what endangers the societal fabric (convictum hominum).103 Concludingly, according to divine law, every deviation of the just price triggers a restitution, whereas according to positive law only a deviation of the just price by more than half of it evokes a liability. The Roman law adage that 'it is by nature allowed to parties in sales to outwit each other'104 should accordingly be understood, so Aquinas.105
This interplay between Roman law adages and Aquinas' Christian beliefs concerning what a seller was allowed to do in business also comes clearly to the fore in the interpretation of the Roman law rule by Castilian scholars. In early modern times, the adage that 'it is by nature allowed to parties in sales to outwit each other'106 served as a vehicle for the discussion about how flesh could be put on the bones of the concept of fairness in exchange in both the forum internum as the forum externum.
In medieval scholarship the view had already been expressed that 'because it is allowed to contracting parties to deceive each other, the contract will not be rescinded, if the lesion is moderate'.107 By and large, Castilian scholars writing for the forum internum adopt Aquinas' views. Medina plainly holds that 'according to natural and divine law men are not allowed to outwit or deceive each other, not in a high, nor in a low degree'. 108 Every deviation beyond the latitude of the thing's just price evokes a duty in the forum internum to rescind or to restore equality by means of restitution.109 Soto remarks that sales has
103 Mark how Grotius' appetitus societatis finds an early expression here. Grotius, IBP, prolegomena 8.
104 D. 4.4.16.4: Idem Pomponius ait in pretio emptionis et venditionis naturaliter licere contrahentibus se circumvenire; D. 19.2.22.3: Quemadmodum in emendo et vendendo naturaliter concessum est quod pluris sit minoris emere, quod minoris sit pluris vendere et ita invicem se circumscribere, ita in
locationibus quoque et conductionibus iuris est.
105 Aquinas, Summa Theol., vol. 9, IIaIIae, q. 77, a.1, ad. pr.: 'Videtur quod aliquis licite possit vendere rem
plus quam valeat. Iustum enim in commutationibus humanae vitae secundum leges civiles determinatur. Sed secundum eas licitum est emptori et venditori ut se invicem decipiant inquantum venditor plus vendit rem quam valeat, emptor autem minus quam valeat \[D. 4.4.16.4; D. 19.2.22.3\]...'; idem, resp. ad. pr.: 'Ad primum ergo dicendum quod, sicut supra dictum est, lex humana populo datur, in quo sunt multi a virtute deficiente: non autem datur solis virtuosis. Et ideo lex humana non potuit prohibere quidquid est contra virtutem, sed ei sufficit ut prohibeat ea quae destruunt hominum convictum; alia vero habeat quasi licita, non quia ea approbet, sed quia ea non punit. Sic igitur habet quasi licitum, poenam non inducens, si absque fraude venditor rem suam supervendat aut emptor vilius emat, nisi sit deceptus ultra dimidium iust pretii quantitatem. Sed lex divina nihil impunitum relinquit quod sit virtuti contrarium. Unde secundum divinam legem illicitum reputatur si in emptione et venditione non sit aequalitas observata. Et tenetur ille qui plus habet recompensare ei qui damnificatus est, si sit notabile damnum'.
106 D. 4.4.16.4.
107 Odofredus, Lectura, to C. 4.44.8, no. 2, fo. 247: 'unde quia licitum est contrahentibus invicem se re ipse
decipere, si lesio est moderata, non rescinditur contractus'; quoted in Baldwin, Medieval theories, p. 21.
Note that Odofredo and Aquinas use decipere instead of circumvenire as in D. 4.4.16.4.
108 Medina, De poenitentia, q. 33, p. 202: 'Nec obstant quae nonnulli Iuristae in oppositum afferunt... Non igitur iure naturae aut divino concessum est hominibus, ut se invicem decipiant aut circumveniant nec in
multo, nec in parvo'.
109 Medina, De poenitentia, q. 33, p. 201: 'Et dicendum breviter quod sive res vendatur aut ematur acrius
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