Page 275 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER FIVE
the bought lands could not be assessed and that consequently the claim had to be dismissed and the previous decisions reversed. The Supreme Court, however, held the determination of the just price a matter of fact which the lower Court had found sufficiently proven. It rejected the appeal.303
Finally, Bijnkershoek's son-in-law Pauw reports a 1759 case in which the plaintiff had the quality of the merchandise, barrels full of pearl oysters, tested by experts.304
In Roman-Frisian legal practice, the assessment of the just price is carried out by experts. The reason given by Van den Sande in his Decisiones is one already stated by Bartolus that, 'how much a thing is worth, cannot be seen with the eyes, but has to be grasped with the intellect'.305 Van den Sande furthermore subscribes to Mornacius' exclusion of proof by testimony, because 'often it is not easy, no, often it is even impossible to extricate oneself from the labyrinth of testimonies given by experts'.306
5.3.4 Extension to buyers, movables and lease
Roman-Dutch scholars do not demonstrate a wish to deviate from the course set out in medieval ius commune, early modern Castilian law and by the majority of legal humanists to extend the remedy for lesion beyond moiety in its broadest fashion.307 Bronchorst, Tulden, Grotius, Vinnius, Van Leeuwen, Noodt, Voet, Van Eck and Van der Keessel all endorse an extension to lease.308 According to Van Eck, the remedy is not only necessary in sales but also in other contracts 'by the same reason of equity and humanity'.309
Grotius, Tulden, Noodt, Voet, Van Eck likewise extend the remedy to buyers.310 Tulden defends such an extension with the 'wish of the law' to realise equality between
303 Bijnkershoek, Observationes, vol. 3, no. 2562, p. 391: 'Vidua tamen quaedam frivola objiciebat... sed et adversus haec petita erat restitutio in integrum et recte petita si dolus et laesio ultra dimidium probetur'; Brom is of the opinion that here the buyer's subjective feelings are taken into account in determining the land's value. However, such need not necessarily be the case. The land's pleasantness and agreeableness (amoenitas et voluptas) can be determined by objective criteria such as its location, sun- hours etc. It is consequently possible that experts compare the price paid for the land with the value of other similar plots. The price estimation is then still carried out objectively. Brom, Urteilsbegründungen, p. 241.
304 Pauw, Observationes, vol. 2, no. 733nov, p. 126: 'Cum Titius leviter inspectis doliis deprehenderet immodicum nimis pretium istis cochleis a Sejo positum, a judicibus Amstelodamensibus petit, ut delegarent qui dolia inspicerent verumque pretium cochlearum statuerunt'.
305 Van den Sande, Decisiones, 3.4, def. 16, p. 211: 'inquit Bartolus \[Commentaria, to C. 4.44.2, no. 22, fo. 164\], quanti res valeat, non potest videri per oculum, sed intelligitur per intellectum'.
306 Van den Sande, Decisiones, 3.4, def. 16, p. 212: 'nec facile sit, imo impossibile saepius, se expedire labyrintho aestimationum, quae sunt per testes'.
307 See 2.3.2.4, 3.4.4, and 4.3.4.
308 Bronchorst, Enantiophanon, 2.58, p. 203: 'Atqui remedium l. 2, C. de resc. vend. \[C. 4.44.2\] in
contractibus bonae fidei tantum locum habet'; Tulden, Commentarius, to C. 4.44, no. 3, p. 229; Grotius, Inleidinge, 3.52.2; Vinnius, Quaestiones, 1.57, p. 256; Van Leeuwen, Censura, ch. 44, to C. 4.44.2, nos. 1-2, p. 689; idem, Rooms-Hollands regt, 4.20, no. 5, p. 387; Noodt, Opera omnia, vol. 2, to D. 18.5, p. 412 \[top right column\]; Voet, Commentarius, vol. 3, p. 466; Van Eck, Principia, vol. 1, to D. 18.5, no. 12, p. 460; Van der Keessel, Theses, to Grotius' Inleidinge 3.52.2, p. 271.
309 Van Eck, Theses, to D. 18, th. 216, p. 42: 'ob eandem aequitatis et humanitatis rationem'.
310 Grotius, Inleidinge, 3.52.2; Noodt, Opera omnia, vol. 2, to D. 18.5, p. 411 \[below left column\]; Voet,
Commentarius, vol. 3, p. 458; Van Eck, Principia, vol. 1, to D. 18.5, no. 11, p. 460. 267