Page 207 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER FOUR
same Cujas in his Recitationes solemnes and in his In Codicem notae seems to defend the opposite view, when he contends that reason is not against granting the remedy to buyers too.218
This shift is difficult to explain. Though the Recitationes in libros IV. priores Codicis were published in 1577, the publication date of the Recitationes solemnes is unknown and the In Codicem notae appeared posthumously in 1597.219 It is, therefore, difficult to guess the chronology behind the various statements and, consequently, similarly tricky to assess what moved Cujas to adopt his views in the respective works. Part of the answer may lie in the fact that in French legal practice the remedy was restricted to sellers.220 Perhaps Cujas thought that reason can not withhold the remedy from buyers, but that practical considerations lead jurists to do so.
Giphanius, nonetheless, holds that Cujas was against extending the remedy for lesion beyond moiety to buyers, which view Giphanius himself does not support. He finds Cujas' argument that the seller can be forced into selling his property, whereas a buyer does not have to buy for an excessive price, unconvincing. According to Giphanius, the remedy is granted because of an enormous prejudice, not because of the seller's particular difficult situation. Seeing that a buyer can just as well be the victim of a sale that is prejudicial in an excessive measure, the remedy should likewise be granted to him.221 Doneau has the same.222
With regard to the remedy's extension to lease Cujas is less ambiguous. Since there is not much difference between sale and lease, so neither is there between buyer and lessee. Cujas terms both 'contractors' (redemptor) who can be deceived for more than half the object's value.223
The remedy's extension to all bonae fidei contracts is accepted by other humanist
suam vendit viliori pretio, l. 2 et 16 h. tit. \[C. 4.44.2 and 16\], quia coactus, non sponte sua vendidit: itaque aequissimum est ei subveniri, ut fraudato supra dimidium justi pretii. Emptor ultro accedit ad emptionem rei immobilis....non est autem aequum ei succurri, qui ultro accedit ad emptionem, qui ultro emit rem, immenso pretio et immodico...'; Klempt. Grundlagen, pp. 21-22; likewise Duarenus, Opera, vol. 3, to C. 4.44, p. 538. He only mentions the remedy to the benefit of sellers.
218 Cuiacius, Opera, vol. 9, p. 373 D:
'Quaeritur an etiam emptori subveniatur, si dimidio pluris emerit? Et
ratio facit, licet non sit lege comprehensum, nec quisquam contradicit, ut emptori etiam subveniatur, eadem electione data venditori, ut vel pretium reddat, quod eccepit, et rem accipiat, vel ut quod soluto
idem, vol. 10, p. 655 C, gloss elegerit to C. 4.44.2: 219 Prévost, Cujas, annexes pp. 518-519 (retrievable from the publisher's website).
220
221 Giphanius, Explanatio, to C. 4.44, p. 308 \[right column\]: 'Quare cum laesio nimi sit vera causa huius beneficii, eaque in utraque et emptore et venditore reperiri possit, merito et ius idem in utroque receptum est'.
222 Donellus, Ad codicis partes, to C. 4.44.2, no. 17, p. 204: 'Tribuitur enim laesioni, hoc est, venditori, non quia venditor est, sed quia laesus est'.
223 Cuiacius, Opera, vol. 9, p. 374D: 'Praeterea quaeritur, an haec constitutio legis 2. habeat locum in aliis contractibus? Sic respondeo. Constat eam habere locum in locatione: ut si aedes meas locavero justi pretii dimidio minoris: Nam locatio quasi emptio est, conductor alias emptor dicitur, sive redemptor, ut Festus scribit... In utroque contractu intervenit pretium. Ergo idem iuris est hac in re in locatione et emptione'.
pretio superest, restituat, d. § si quid in fraudem...';
'Sic et emptori subvenitur si dimidio pluris emerit...'.
De la Combe, Recueil, lemma 'Restitution',
§3,
p. 329.
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