Page 310 - 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
remedies is also hard to rhyme with natural law reasoning. Every one of these considerations is valid, according to Cocceji, and there is no place for an edifying picture of how the law should be according to natural law principles, as envisaged by Grotius.
'He \[i.e. Grotius\] mixes up the rules for the interpretation of natural law with those for the interpretation of civil law... various rules have been invented which have not any foundation in natural reason, even though they conform with equity'.126
As a result, the differences existing in Roman law between the remedy under the contract and the aedilician remedies for latent defects are perfectly conceivable. Consequently, there is no need to abolish the aedilician particular features on the grounds that these do not conform to natural law.
Cocceji's ideas might have their source in his experiences with legal practice. A councillor for the university of Frankfurt an der Oder's Spruchfakultät since 1690, Cocceji had to solve legal issues in accordance with the law of the time, which was that of the usus modernus Pandectarum.127 Indeed, many usus modernus-scholars still clung to the aedilician remedies' special characteristics, where it concerned both the question whether the remedies could be instituted against individual sellers in solidum and the remedies' penal character.128
Also standing out from his fellow natural law scholars, be it somewhat less than Cocceji, is the figure of Heineccius. He once termed the aedilician remedies the epitome of fair rules.129 In his monograph on the aedilician edict Heineccius demonstrates an usus modernus-approach whenever he discusses the edict's content, compares it with customary law and speculates on the combination of the two as to how things worked out
126 Cocceji, Introductio, diss. 7, 4.15, p. 112: 'Confundit \[sc. Grotius\] regulas interpretandi naturales cum civilibus... variae inventae sunt regulae, quae nullum in ratione naturali fundamentum habent, licet aequitati conveniant'.
127 E. Döhring, 'Cocceji'', p. 300; cf. Cocceji, Deductiones, consilia et responsa, passim.
128 Brunnemann, Commentarius, to D. 21.1.44, nos. 2-3, p. 598;'detur actio aedilitia...in solidum contra unum'; idem, to D. 21.1.45: '...actio empti semper ad simplum dirigatur, verum aedilitia haec redhibitoria
actio ad duplum etiam...est enim haec actio arbitraria ob contumaciam'; Lauterbach, Collegium, vol. 2, to D. 21.1, no. 23, p. 166: 'Adversus illos...qui si plures sint et aequales partes habeant, singuli in solidum tenentur, d. l. 31, § 10 \[D. 21.1.31.10\]. Si vero inaequales habeant partes, adversus em datur, qui majorem habet, l. 44, §I, ff. eod. \[D. 21.1.44.1\]'; Stryk, Usus modernus, to D. 21.1, § 32, p. 710: 'Quaeritur hic etiam de eo casu si plures conjunctim unam rem vendiderint,...utrum emtor omnes venditores convenire teneatur an vero contra unum ex illis actionem instituisse sufficiat. Paulus in l. 44, § 1, ff. h.t. \[D. 21.1.44.1\] ad hanc quaestionem respondet, aedilitiones actiones competere etiam in unum ex his, qui vendiderunt, eum scilicet, cujus maxima pars venditione fuit ....id est, contra singulos in solidum, quorum aequales parte in vendione fuerunt...' ; idem, §51, p. 726: '...propter contumaciam duplum peti possit, l. 45, ff. h.t. \[D. 21.1.45\]'; Böhmer, Doctrina de actionibus, p. 592: 'Si plures sunt venditores, in unum etiam cuius maior pars aut nulla parte minor reliquis est, datur actio et ita contra singulos in solidum, l. 44, §I, eod. \[D. 21.44.1\]. In hoc differt ab actione emti, quae contra singulos pro portione, qua socii sunt, datur et ita circa movendam actionem multa praecautione opus es ne per exceptionem adversarii a via declinemus, veluti....Dass auch Beklager vermeinet, dass er die Pferde nicht allein verkauffet, und ich allenfalls seinen Bruder mit belangen müsste, darinn irret er sehr, anerwogen ich nicht actione emti, sondern die Redhibitorien-Klage angestellet, welche contra singulos in solidum moviret werden mag \[Böhmer's emphasis\]'; Hahn, Observata, vol. 2, to D. 21.1, no. 10, p. 36; Kreittmayer (1705-1790), Anmerkungen, vol. 4, p. 226.
129 Heineccius, Ad aedilitium edictum, 3.9, pp. 91-92. See 5.2.1.4. 304