Page 140 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER THREE
accepted point of view, even though the law of the kingdom proposes a four-year remedy'.270 Azevedo makes the limitation period depend on the presence of fraud. Deliberate fraud (ex proposito) triggers a remedy that lasts for more than four years and even up to 40 in the event of kings and popes.271
Molina and Oñate merely mention that medieval ius commune and Castilian civil law disagree with regard to the remedy's duration. Yet, they do not express their support for either the one or the other.272
3.4.2.1 Legal practice
Piñel's statement that in practice Courts retain a skeptical attitude toward litigants who wait long before bringing the claim to have suffered lesion beyond moiety finds support in the manuscripts of cases brought before the Royal Chancery of Valladolid. In a case between Gonzales del Rio and Alonso Rodriguez (1590) about the sale of two stallions (machos) the defendant Del Río tries to hammer home that his opponent Rodriguez had abused the law by waiting for two years before claiming that the horses were in bad condition.
'the other reason is that the said abuse of the opposing party is easy to gauge, seeing that almost two years have passed since the said sale and that until the moment that my party has de- manded payment for them, he \[i.e. Rodriguez\] has not acted nor pretended anything... now hold that the result is that \[illegible\] \[any\] action that would have been possible for them to bring has \[illegibile\] died \[?\] because of the lapse of time'.273
Unfortunately, it remains unclear within which period the remedy itself should have been instituted. Yet, Del Río steers at non-suitability when he states that he cannot think of any possible remedies still available two years after the sale has been concluded. The Royal Chancery pronounces that Del Rio's appeal has been instituted correctly and sentences Rodríguez to pay for the stallions.274 Though this verdict is not motivated, it is likely that Rodríguez' substantially viable suit bounced, because it was initiated more than two years after the sales' conclusion. Moreover, since all witnesses testified in favour of Rodríguez275, it is unlikely that Rodríguez lost on substantial grounds. Thus, from this case
270 Covarrubias, Resolutiones, in: Opera omnia, vol. 2, 2.3, no. 4, fo . 55: 'Alibi etenim tradidimus iure Caesareo intra triginta annos posse in iudicium deduci auxilium ex d.l. 2 \[C. 4.44.2\] competens venditori et emptori causa laesionis ultra dimidium. Iuxta veriorem magisque receptam sententiam, tametsi iure Regio ex actio intra quadriennium proponenda sit, unde quibusdam videbitur exaequatam esse ac fere similem censeri beneficio restitutionis in integrum minoribus aetate competenti, et ob id iure itidem Regio admittendam fore'.
271 Azevedo, Commentarii, to Nueva Recopilación 5.11.1, no. 32, p. 347: 'quod si deceptio esset facta ex proposito vel esset enormissima, tunc ultra quadriennium competeret. Principi tamen reipublicae vel Ecclesiae per quadraginta annos durabit'.
272 Molina, Opera omnia, vol. 2, disp. 349, no. 15, p. 231; Oñate, De contractibus, disp. 63.5, no. 136, p. 59.
273 Pl. civ., F. Alonso (f.), caja 447, 1 (1570), sc. 13-14: 'lo otro porque la dicha malicia contraria se deja | bien entender atento que a casi dos anos que | paso la dicha venta y asta ahora que mi parte a pe- | dido el dinero dellos no a tratado ni pretendido \[13\] | \[q\]ue ahora pretende de que resulta que qua
\[illegible\] | \[a\]lguna accion les ubiera competido esta est \[illegible\] | \[pre?\]scripta por el dicho tiempo',
274 Pl. civ., F. Alonso (f.), caja 447, 1 (1570), sc. 142.
275 Pl. civ., F. Alonso (f.), caja 447, 1 (1570), sc. 21-22, 25, 29, 38.
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