Page 234 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

EARLY MODERN DUTCH LAW
by the decreed tax rate.96 I found no instances in which the buyer's subjective feelings, be it or not expressed by oath, determined the object's value.97
5.2.1.3 Limitation periods
Under influence of medieval statutory law, early modern Castilian civil law abolished the perpetual remedy for defects which medieval ius commune scholars had read in D. 19.1.13pr.98 Legal humanism, however, presented a more diverse picture. A significant number of humanist scholars adhered to the Accursian division of temporal aedilician remedies and perpetual civil ones. Other humanists contrariwise dismissed that distinction and contended that only the short aedilician periods of six months and one year applied. 99
With regard to the question which limitation periods applied to the remedies for defects in things sold, the positions taken by the Dutch scholars discussed in the previous sections become somewhat predictable. Vinnius as we observed earlier, closely followed Doneau in his dealings with the aedilician remedies' scope and characteristics. Apparently satisfied with Doneau's explanation that the civil remedies take an aedilician dress when they are brought for latent defects, Vinnius also applies the aedilician limitation periods to whatever remedy was open for latent defects, no matter whether their origin was civil or aedilician.100
Grotius, however, breaks new ground. Though the limitation period he assigns to
96 Bijnkershoek, Observationes, vol. 3, no. 2841, p. 611: 'Emptor ait se paratum esse solvere pretium, sed deducto, quanti minoris valeret praedium propter recitentiam utriusque oneris'.
97 Closest to that comes a case about the sale of the library of the renowned philologist Isaac Vossius (1618-1689). Bijnkershoek found that an estimation by the objective standard was impossible, since the value of Vossius' library depended on the buyers' affection for the philologist's manuscripts. As a result, the contract had to be carried out as stipulated between the parties. 'Deinde nec pretium iri potest librorum, qui, quamvis typis descripti sunt non exstant tamen vulgo venales', Bijnkershoek, Observationes, vol. 1, no. 62, p. 19 \[centre right column\]. Case discussed in Brom, Urteilsbegründungen, pp. 240–241; Langer's statement that in this case experts estimated the just price is difficult to understand. The contrary seems the case. Bijnkershoek wonders how the curators could underpin their claim to have been enormously prejudiced, since the price of the manuscripts was 'most peculiar and based only on affection (qui enim rarissimi pretium non habent nisi affectionis)', Bijnkershoek, Observationes, vol. 1, no. 62, p. 20 \[centre right column\]; Langer, Laesio enormis, pp. 74- 75.
98 See 3.3.1.3 .
99 See 4.2.1.3.
100 Vinnius, Jurisprudentiae contractae, 2.15, pp. 246–247:'... Illud in universum sciendum est actioni
redhibitoriae locum non esse nisi tale sit vitium, quod usum rei impediat et quamvis rei persecutionem contineat, tamen ultra sex menses quibus de ea re experiundi potestas fuit, non dari. Actio quanto minoris competit intra annum utilem non ad hoc ut emptio rescindatur, sed ut quanto minoris propter vitium res fuit, cum emeretur, tantum restituatur emptori',; cf. Donellus, Commentarii, vol. 7, book 13, ch. 3, §10, p. 395: 'Sed haec actio etsi rei persecutionem habet, tempore tamen agendi non ita est, ut sunt caeterae actiones sive civiles, sive praetoriae. Nam caeterae quae rei persecutionem continent, etiam si sint honorariae, perpetuae sunt. L. in honorariis, D. de obl. et act. \[D. 44.7.35\]. Actio redhibitoria quia emptionis rescissionem habet, et praeter conventionem inducta est ab aedilibus, proposita est tantum edicto instra sex menses; verum utiles. L. sciendum, 19.§ ul. L. aediles aiunt, 38. D. eod. \[D. 21.1.19.6; D. 21.1.38pr.\]. Id est sex menses, constantes iis diebus, quibus experiundi potestas fuit. L. 1. D. de divers. temp. praef. \[D. 44.3.1\]. Quaere et si ex empto actione ad redhibendum agetur...tamen ultra hoc tempus agere non licebit. Quippe quod actionis generi praestiturum est, sed redhibitioni, d.L. Sciendum, 19. §. ult. de aed.ed. \[D. 21.1.19.6\]'.
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