Page 306 - 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
a further loosening of the bond with ius commune. Apparently, the kind of breach determined the duration of the remedy, not the remedy which is consequently brought. This reasoning, the like of which we already encountered with Grotius, has a natural law flavour.98
Thomasius somewhat earlier had likewise advocated that the concurring remedies for defects should be brought into line.
'... the perpetuity of pecuniary debts is very evident and universal, although among some kinds of debts there are some which, because of the nature of the agreement and also abstracted from the human law, are said to expire after a perceivable lapse of time \[note p: as with the action for returning the thing and price reduction and perhaps with all rescissions and restitutions in affairs\]'99
First, Thomasius argues that between principes pecuniary debts do not expire at all, because principes answer to natural law.100 Consequently, according to natural law pecuniary debts do not expire, something which Thomasius repeats for civil law remedies in the passage quoted above. However, the limitation periods of the aedilician remedies are an exception to that rule together with all other remedies aiming at a rescission of an agreement, 'because of the nature of the agreement (ex natura negotii)'. Hence, not the remedies' Roman law pedigree, but the purpose they serve determines their duration.
Samuel von Cocceji (1679-1755)101, however, in accordance with his earlier noted rejection of some of the basic assumptions of natural law theory, perseveres in the existence of two sets of rules for the aedilician and civil remedies for defects. Both sets serve their own purpose.102 Samuel, the son of Heinrich, Pufendorf's successor in Heidelberg to the chair for international and natural law103, demonstrates a remarkably tendency to hark back to Bartolist ius commune-interpretations of civil law. He thus appears more akin to usus modernus-scholarship than to the school of natural law.
By and large, usus modernus-scholars keep to the division of the action on the
98 In some German regions too limitation periods could vary in accordance with the type of thing sold and the character of the defect. Cf. Topp, De actione redhibitoria (1753), § 6, n.p.: 'Diversa autem harum actionum est praescriptio in diversis provinciis, e.g. ratione equorum in Electoratu Brunsvico Luneburgico propter vitia latentia capitalia vel non capitalia. Quare actores de hac materia in foro certantes ad consuetudines et constitutiones speciales uniuscuiusque proviniciae ablegamus.'
99 Thomasius, De perpetuitate debitorum pecuniariorum, §V, 12: '... perpetuitas debitorum pecuniariorum sit magis evidens et universalis, cum in reliquis debitis nonnulla sint, quae ex natura negotii etiam abstrahendo a lege humana sensibili temporis lapsu videantur expirare (\[note p\]: ut in actione redhibitoria et quanti minoris et forte in omnibus rescissionibus negotiorum et restitutionibus)'.
100 Thomasius, Notae ad singulos institutionum et pandectarum titulos, 4.12, p. 271: 'Perpetuae actiones intuitu iuris civilis dicuntur durant triginta annos, vide interpretes ad pr. hic. Usus fori Germanici quomodo differat a dispositione iuris Romani, docet Noricus hic. At inter Principes, qui solo iure naturuli utuntur, tempus non est modus finiendae actionis personalis. Vid. disp. nostr. de perpetuitate debitorum pecuniariorum. Conf. Schilter. ad h.t., p. 619'.
101 For biographical data see E. Döhring,, 'Cocceji, Samuel Freiherr von', in: NDB 3 (1957), p. 301.
102 Samuel von Cocceji, Ius civile controversum, ad D. 21.1, q. VI, p. 60: 'Sane diversissimae utriusque sunt praestationes, l. 13, § fin. de Contrah. empt. \[D. 18.1.13\], junct. l. 51, § I, l. 44, § I, h.t. \[D. 21.1.51.1 and
D. 21.1.44.1\]...illa durat 30. annis, haec anno finitur etc.'; Klempt, Grundlagen, p. 54.
103 For biographical data see E. Döhring, 'Cocceji, Heinrich von, Freiherr von', in: NDB 3 (1957), p. 300.
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