Page 202 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

LEGAL HUMANISM
distinction between permissibly outwitting each other and prohibitedly committing fraud.187 They criticise the medieval concept of dolus in re ipsa.
Oldendorp strongly rejects the view that lesion beyond moiety is some sort of dolus. He does not see how the scope of the inflicted prejudice can determine whether or not fraud has been committed. From the Codex texts granting a remedy for such prejudice 'it does not follow that the laws allow deception in the sense of fraud, as some impudently contend because of their ignorance of the law and equity'.188 Fraud (dolus) is always
Cujas, for similar reasons, renames the term dolus in re ipsa into fraus in re ipsa.189 He probably intended to clearly draw the distinction between remedies in the event of fraud (dolus) and those lying for 'deceit', which, in Latin, rather confusingly translates as fraus. Cujas finds the ius commune-doctrine of fraud (dolus) in the situation itself hard to reconcile with the rule he found in Justinian's law books that seller and buyer within certain limits are allowed to outwit each other. He upholds the Roman law rule that parties are free to strike the most advantageous bargain, even if some deceit is involved, as long as it does not turn into fraud (dolus).190 Hence his adage that in sales 'dolus must be absent, but fraus need not'.191 The prohibition of deceit (fraus) of more than half the thing's just price in Cujas' view constitutes an exception to the rule that generally speaking deceit is allowed in sales. The remedy for lesion beyond moiety is not the answer to some particular kind of dolus, but to an excessive prejudice as a result of otherwise allowed 'deceit', 'because dolus can not be determined by the height of the thing's price, but by the buyer's cunning and treachery'.192
187 Oldendorp, Progymnasmata, p. 291 \[below left column\]: 'Permittunt ne ergo leges deceptionem usque ad dimidiam justi pretii? Utique permittunt, Ulpianus in leg. in causa cognitione, § pen. ff. de minoribus. \[D. 4.4.13\]. In pretio (ait) emptionis et venditionis naturaliter licere contrahentibus circumvenire. Accipe autem de natura contractus, ne obiter, l. item si pretio, § quemadmod., ff. locat. \[D. 19.2.22.3\].
188 Oldendorp, Progymnasmata, p. 251 \[top right column\]: 'Verum inde non sequitur leges probare deceptionem, hoc est dolum malum et fraudem, ut quidam impudenter colligunt, ignorantia iuris et aequitatis'.
189 Cuiacius, Opera, vol. 10, p. 655 B, gloss rem to C. 4.44.2: 'Hic non est ponendum rem dolo venditam, nam tum etiam si res non venierit minoris, datur restitutio pretii. Sed pone in re ipsa fraudem esse' ; idem, vol. 10, p. 1005 E, to D. 18.1: 'Ergo generalis definitio haec sit, non ideo rescindi venditionem, quod paulo viliori pretio res venierit. Cui addatur tantum haec exceptio, nisi pretium minus sit, quam dimidia pars justi pretii'; idem, vol. 1, p. 1186 A: 'emptionem non infirmat fraus in pretio'; vol. 4, 963, B, C: 'ius commune est, ut liceat venditori, quod minus est minoris emere, l. si voluntate C. de rescind. vend. \[C. 4.44.8\]. Et in pretio constituendo possunt emptor et venditor citra dolum malum re ipsa se invicem circumvenire...'. Here, Cuiacius uses the term dolus in re ipsa again.
190 Cuiacius, Opera, vol. 4, p. 963, B, C: 'ius commune est, ut liceat venditori, quod minus est minoris emere, l. si voluntate C. de rescind. vend. \[C. 4.44.8\]. Et in pretio constituendo possunt emptor et venditor citra dolum malum re ipsa se invicem circumvenire...'.
191 Cuiacius, Opera, vol. 2, p. 1132 B: 'Dolus abesse debet, fraus abesse non debet';
192 Cuiacius, Opera, vol. 9, p. 372 E: '\[372 E\] At pono dolum emptoris non intervenisse, sed in re ipsa esse fraudem, quia res iusto pretio non veniit, quaero an ob id solum venditio rescindatur? Minime, quia dolus
emptoris abest. Nam dolus ex quantitate pretii non aestimatur, sed ex calliditate et insidiis emptoris, l. 8. hoc. tit. \[C. 4.44.8\]; \[373 C\] Ergo summa haec sit: praetextu minoris pretii venditio non rescinditur, sicut
reprehensible, be it for more than half the thing's value or less.
partes, to C. 4.44.2, no. 1, p. 203: '... ita superior circumscriptio in emtione et venditione concessa est, ut quamvis multo minus sit pretium, aut maius, quam oportet, tamen non liceat ob eam caussam
venditionem rescindere invito alterutro, l. ad rescindendam, \[C. 4.44.4\] l. ratas, i, h.t. \[C. 4.44.7\]'.
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