Page 294 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY NATURAL LAW
Grotius, Pufendorf evades a discussion about which ius commune-remedies are applicable and how they relate to each other. He simply states that both the remedies on the contract and the aedilician remedies are pertinent:
'D. 19.1.1.1 and D. 18.1.43.2 are pertinent and likewise the entire title about the aedilician edict, where the defects in draught animals and slaves that should be indicated and the concealment of which gives rise to a remedy for returning the thing are recounted one by one'32
Wolff too argues that a defect in a thing can cause a breach of contractual equality, when it impedes the right estimation of the price one is willing to pay for it.33 He is equally vague as Grotius and Pufendorf with regard to the question which remedy the buyer has at his disposal, if a seller has not made the buyer aware of any defects. Wolff says no more than that the seller must inform the buyer of defects in the item. He does not elaborate on the technicalities following a breach of this requirement.34
The idea that a breach of fairness in exchange because of a defect could be remedied in various ways regardless of the kind of defect, seems to have percolated through to some regions in France. Jean Domat, member of the Parlement de Paris and friend of the mathematician Pascal35, mentions corporeal and non-corporeal defects at random in his Lois civiles dans leur ordre naturel of 1689, thus implying that there is no different regime for either of them. Instead, Domat ties the seller's liability to the damage the defect produces. Not every defect creates a right to sue. Only if it seriously impedes the thing's use, remedies become available.36
Robert Joseph Pothier (1699-1772), another French legal scholar of high repute, had a scholastic background37 and was also influenced by early modern scholasticism. From the title of his treatise on obligations alone one can already surmise that its content will be imbibed with scholastic natural law theory. Fully titled Traité des obligations selon les règles tant du for de la conscience que du for extérieur, Pothier's work indeed repeats the doctrine as it was formulated by the early modern scholastics.
'L'équité doit regner dans les conventions, d'où il suit que dans le contrats intéressés dans lesquels l'un des contractans donne ou fait quelque chose, pour recevoir
32 Pufendorf, De iure naturae, 5.3.2, p. 700: 'huc pertinet l. 1, §1, D. de act. emt. vend., l. 43, §2, D. de contrah. emt. item totus titulus de aedil. edicto, ubi sigillatim recensentur vitia quae in jumentis et mancipiis venalibus sunt indicanda et quae dissimulata redhibitioni locum faciunt'.
33 Klempt, Grundlagen, p. 46.
34 Wolff, Ius naturae, vol. 4, § 1044, p. 727: 'Vitia rei quae in oculos non incurrunt, vel aliunde nota non
sunt, emtori indicare tenetur venditor. Sunt enim vitia accidentia ingrata, quae adeo vel utilitati ut jucunditati obstant, aut molestiam afferunt, vel ad eam afferendam apta sunt....venditor omnino emtori vitia rei quae in oculos non incurrunt nec aliunde iam nota sunt indicare debet, ut libere statuat, utrum iis non obstantibus rem, minori praesertim pretio emere velit an nolit'.
35 M.-F. Renoux-Zagamé, 'Domat, Jean', in: Dictionnaire, pp. 254-256.
36 Domat, Les lois, vol. 1, 1.2.3, p. 163: 'Comme il n'est pas possible de reprimer toutes les infidelitez de
vendeur et que les inconveniens seroient trop gands de resoudre, ou troubles les ventes, pour toute sorte de défauts des chose vendites on ne considere que ceux qui les rendent absolument inutiles a l'usage pour lequel elle sont en commerce...'
37 J.-L. Thireau, 'Pothier, Robert-Joseph', in: Dictionnaire, pp. 636-638. 288