Page 137 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

EARLY MODERN CASTILIAN LAW
'The doctrine of fraud which renders the bona fide contract of itself null, cannot be applied'.257
Albornoz explicitly distinguishes between lesion beyond moiety and fraud. First, he observes that 'a sales contract... in which there is no fraud, though there may be deceit (engaño) in the price, is valid if the deceit is less than half'.258 The Castilian term engaño, which he uses in the expression 'lesion beyond moiety (engaño en la mitad)' does not mean fraud (dolus) but 'deceit', which is allowed in sales as long as it does not amount to more than half the thing's just price. Albornoz continues with stating that 'deceit' – not fraud – amounting to more than half the just price is enough to trigger liability.
'In the event the seller or buyer who is 'deceived' (engañado) for more than half the just price... in that case the one who 'deceived' the other (hizo el engaño a otro), if it is the seller, must take back the thing and pay back what he has been paid for it, or otherwise return the excess of price which he carried away'.259
Albornoz nowhere states that a lesion beyond moiety constitutes some kind of fraud (dolus). By way of exception to the rule that parties who wish to enter into a contract are allowed to 'deceive' each other, a claimant can prove that the 'deceit' amounts to more than half the just price. With such a lesion established, a remedy is automatically granted. It does not seem possible that the party who caused the prejudice can counter the claim by stating that he had not acted fraudulently.
Hevia Bolaño, Piñel and Albornoz thus all refrain from using the concept of dolus in re ipsa to explain the liability which is caused by a deviation of more than half the thing's just price. Padilla y Meneses, however, in his comments to C. 4.44.2, still reasons from the theory of 'fraud in the situation' (dolus in re ipsa). Yet, he gives it a subjective twist, when he contends that a lesion beyond moiety presumes deliberate fraud. A contract is by itself null and void, if that presumption of fraud is proven to be right.260
3.4.1.1 Legal practice
The pleitos decided by the Royal Chancery dealing with lesion beyond moiety concentrate on the object's just price. The duped party only needs to proof whether he paid an excess of more than half or, if he sold the thing, received less than half the thing's just price. Additional proof of fraud does not seem to be required. In other words, a lesion beyond moiety does not presume fraud, but constitutes fraud by itself.
257 Pinelus, Rescripta, to C. 4.44.2, 1. 4, no. 28, p. 240: 'non potest applicari doctrina de dolo, reddente nullum ipso iure contractum bonae fidei'; Decock, Theologians, p. 573.
258 Albornoz, Arte, 2.7.1, fo. 55v: 'Contracto de compra o vendida... en que no huviere dolo, aunque haia engaño en el precio, si es menos de la mitad valga el contracto'.
259 Albornoz, Arte, 2.7.2, fo. 55v: 'El vendedor o comprador que fuere engañado en mas de la mitad del iusto precio... en tal caso el que hizo el engaño a otro, si fuere el vendedor esta obligado a tornar a tomar su cosa y dar lo que por esta le dieron, y sino bolver la demasia de el Precio que llevo'.
260 Padilla y Meneses, In quaedam, to C. 4.44.2, no. 2, fo. 72: 'ex enormi laesione fraus ac dolus praesumitur... Igitur doli praesumptione interveniente contractum oportet ipso iure corruere, nec est necessum eum beneficio huius constitutionis rescindi, pretiumve suppleri, nam contractus vel ipso iure nullus est'; idem, no. 1, p. 72.
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