Page 237 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER FIVE
To Voet that is unacceptable:
'Groenewegen, among others, tells in his notes to D. 21.1.19 and D. 21.1.38 that in France only nine days are given to bring the remedy for returning the thing. In our custom that is not at all to be accepted. Rather there is a one year period or a period in statutory civil law. See Grotius Inleidinghe, 3.15.30ff. and 3.17.6.'112
Interestingly, Voet refers to Grotius' one year limitation instead of the six-months period of the edict. Moreover, he adds that the statutory civil law may provide a period as well.113
Noodt clearly opts for the aedilician periods of limitation. Discussing the remedies for price reduction and returning the thing, Noodt mentions no other periods.114 This ignoring of the civil law's limitation period not only by Noodt, but by other scholars such as Vinnius, Eck, Voet and Heineccius115 as well, may indicate that the aedilician limitation periods were seen as the obvious ones to be applied.
Lastly, a wholly different approach is present in the writings of Van der Linden. In his Koopmans handboek, Van der Linden mentions the default limitation for immovables of one third of an era, viz. 33 years and four months.116 Does that mean a seller had to watch over his shoulder for angry buyers for so long? No. According to Van der Linden, a seller who was informed that a customer had plans to sue him, could issue a writ to force the boasting buyer to start proceedings. If he did not act within six weeks, the buyer would be 'silenced for eternity'.117
5.2.1.3.1 Roman-Frisian legal doctrine on limitation
Both Doneau's view, shared by Vinnius, that the short aedilician limitation periods prevailed and Grotius' description of Roman-Dutch law according to which all remedies for defects lasted one year were lost on Wissenbach. According to this Frisian scholar who stuck to a literal reading of the Corpus iuris civilis 'the aedilician remedies are temporary, as indicated. The civil remedies are perpetual, D. 21.2.56pr. For another view see Doneau
112 Voet, Commentarius, vol. 3, to D. 21.1, no. 6, p. 741: 'In Galliam tamen novem tantum dies redhibitoriae actioni movendae datos esse, post alios tradit Groenewegen ad l.19&38, ff. h.t. quod de nostris moribus haud admittendum, sed magis anni spatium, aut tempus iure civili statutum. Vide Grotium, manud. ad Iurispr. Holl. libr. 3, cap. 15, num. 30 & seqq. & cap. 17, num. 6'.
113 The paragraph Voet refers t o does not exist in Grot iusI'nleidinghe. Voet seems to refer to Groenewegen's note 30 to to Grotius' Inleidinge 3.15.7. See Grotius, Inleiding (with commentary by W. Schorer), p. 555.
114 Noodt, Commentarius, in: Opera omnia, vol. 2, to D. 21.1, p. 457: ' Promittitur porro haec actio ab aedilibus non in perpetuum: sed intra sex menses et quidem utiles. Id apparet ex Edicto et ab Ulpiano notatum l. 19. §.6 h.t.
115 Van Eck, Principia iuris civilis, vol. 2, to D. 21.1, no. 8, p. 34. Van Eck only discusses remedies for latent defects only here and none in title D. 19.1; Heineccius, Ad aedilitium edictum, 3.8, p. 90.
116 Van der Linden, Koopmans handboek, p. 195: 'Naar ons regt wordt de verjaaring in 't algemeen gesteld op een derde van een eeuw'.
117 Van der Linden, Koopmans handboek, p. 320. 'Wanneer iemand zich openlijk laat verluiden, tegen ons een actie te hebben, doch nalatig blijft, om daar mede bij den Regter voor den dag te komen, heeft de Practijk ingevoerd, dat men hem, door het vragen van een Mandement, of het doen eener dagvaarding, kan noodzaken, om zoodanige actie, als hij vermeent tegen ons te hebben, binnen een tijd van zes weken, te institueren... terwijl hij, bij gebreken van dien, daar van verstoken zal zijn, en aan hem een eeuwig zwijgen opgelegd worden'.
229