Page 128 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER THREE
Gómez points at the difference between the Siete Partidas and ius commune-doctrine. According to the first, a buyer could also rescind a sale, if the seller had been unaware of the servitude. Contrariwise, ius commune-doctrine then only granted a price reduction.220 Yet, in both cases the Siete Partidas limited the liability to the price paid.221 Damages due could never exceed that sum. As a consequence, the difference between the Siete Partidas and ius commune-rules seems only a minor one.
Be that as it may, López and Gómez solve the contradictions in the Digest, i.e. that sometimes a knowing seller is liable for full damages but in other texts he is not and that sometimes an unknowing seller is not held liable at all, but in other texts he is liable for price reduction. Both scholars take recourse to the general rule according to which the seller in bad faith should be liable for more than the seller in good faith. They extend this rule, which is only found within the context of defective movables, to Roman law texts about encumbered land, which texts, however, are far from unequivocal.
Other Castilian scholars still abide by the somewhat counterintuitive content of D. 21.1.61, i.e. that the knowing seller is liable for price reduction only. Villadiego Vascuñana y Montoya (c. 1550-?)222, one of the founders of the Colegio de Abogades in Madrid in 1596, grants the buyer of an encumbered piece of land only an actio quanto minoris, despite the seller's bad faith. He adds, however, that this remedy includes a compensation for all damages (con todos los daños y costas). Stating thus, Villadiego gives a new twist both to ius commune-doctrine as well as to the text of SP 5.5.63. Yet, he does so without discriminating between types of defects.223
It might strike the reader acquainted with Justinianic law that Villadiego relates the actio quanto minoris to a knowing seller and a liability to pay all damages. This goes against the grain of D. 19.1.13pr. and SP 5.5.63 which explicitly indicate that the remedy for price reduction does not entail a liability for more than the difference between the price paid and the thing's lesser worth. Moreover, we have seen above that López and Gómez reserved the remedy for price reduction for cases in which the seller was in good faith. Apparently, Villadiego ignores, first, that according to ius commune-doctrine only a
220 Though not all ius commune-scholars held this view. See 2.2.4.
221 SP 5.5.63: '... mas si eso no sopiese el vendedor quando lo vendió, no serie tenudo de tornar mas del
prescio tan solamente'.
222 For biographical details see M. Santana Molina, 'Villadiego Bascuñana y Montoya, Alonso de (?)', in: DBE, vol. 50, pp. 19-21.
223 Villadiego Vascuñana y Montoya, Instrucción, ch. 9, nos. 66-67, fo. 150v: '...si el vendedor callò alguna servidumbre o hypoteca puede el comprador por la accion quanto minoris pedir se le buelva lo que vale menos la cosa vendida y por derecho del Reyno pedir que se dè por ninguna la venta...l.1, §1, ff., de act. l. 63 tit. 5 \[67\] Es obligado assimismo el vendedor a declarar al comprador al tiempo de la venta las hypothecas, servidumbres, y otras cargas que tenga la cosa vendida, si es raiz, y si es mueble, o esclavo, o bestia, o ganado, las tachas, y defectos que tuviere, con especialidad, y distincion, sin callar, ni encubrir ninguna: y de otra suerte, por derecho comun, si sabia las hypotecas, o tachas, y no las declarò, se le puede pedir el menoscabo, o moderacion del precio, quanto menos valía la cosa por tener tales defectos, actione quanto minoris, con todos los daños, y costas que a esta causa se le ayan seguido; pero no si lo ignoraba, que en tal caso solo serà obligado a bolver el precio y recibir la cosa vendida ex actione redhibitoria, ... el vendedor vendiendo la casa por libre estando hypotecada... y asi ha de ser castigado arbitrariamente conforme à la calidad de las persona y del caso, y negocio'.
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