Page 321 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER SIX
Pothier further elaborates the theme of garantie. He too equates the liability for encumbrances with that for eviction. Rules for eviction he consequently applies to sellers of encumbered immovables. As the liability rules for eviction are the same as those for latent defects, Pothier saw only one set of principles governing the liability of sellers of encumbered things, be the encumbrance consisting in a latent defect or a third-party claim, something which would later be fixed in article 1639 of the Code civil.184
'Cette action est une branche de l'action personnelle ex empto, de même que l'action de garantie en cas d'éviction; et tout ce que nous avons dit dans la section précédente, de l'obligation de défendre l'acheteur des demandes en éviction, reçoit application à l'égard de l'obligation de le défendre des demandes pour raison des droits réels prétendus sur l'heritage185, lorsqu'il n'en a pas été en chargé'.186
However, Pothier explains the content of the seller's safeguarding duty in a manner more in keeping with ius commune-rules for liability for eviction and for encumbrances on immovables. Concerning eviction, unlike the seller in bad faith, the seller in good faith is not liable for all the damages the buyer incurred but only for a repayment of the price and compensation of the loss the buyer suffered because he could not keep the thing in his possession (propter rem ipsam non habitam).187 Pothier gives an example of the sale of a house, which the buyer turns into a pub. The buyer can not claim damages he suffered as pub-keeper consisting, for example, of loss of clients, if the seller did not know that a third party could lay claim on the property.188 This falls in with the discernible trend since medieval ius commune to apply the rule of D. 19.1.13pr about contagious cattle and rotten wood to all cases of the seller's liability in the contract of sale.189
Another remark illustrating Pothier's indebtedness to medieval ius commune- doctrine is that a seller does not need to declare encumbrances 'réglés par les coutumes et usités dans la Province'.190 Already Accursius had proferred that a tributum does not give rise to a duty to compensate, since 'the buyer should have known about the provincial tax'.191
In the more practically orientated usus modernus-literature, the approximation of the liability regime for defects in immovables to that for defects in movables seems to have persisted. At least, usus modernus-doctrine favours a regime in which the liability of the
commune distinctions between remedies on the contract and remedies based on the edict are
substantially the same.
184 Les autres questions auxquelles peuvent donner lieu les dommages et intérêts résultant pour l'acquéreur
de l'inexécution de la vente doivent être décidées suivant les règles générales établies au titre "Des
contrats ou des obligations conventionnelles en général.
185 The reader should be aware that the term 'heritage' not only means inheritance but also 'les immeubles
réels, comme terres, maisons', see Litrré, sub voce 'héritage' .<http://littre.reverso.net>.
186 Pothier, Vente, vol. 1, 2.1, no. 201, p. 197.
187 Ibidem, vol. 1, 2.1, no. 130, p. 120-121.
188 Ibidem, vol. 1, 2.1, no. 136, p. 127.
189 See 2.2.4.
190 Ibidem, vol. 1, 2.1, no. 196, p. 193.
191 Gloss Quanto minoris to D. 19.1.13(14).1. See 2.2.4.
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