Page 326 - 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
rescinded or what is lacking in the just price be made good. After all, the graveness of the lesion is estimated by the magnitude of the price or by the lack of resources of the prejudiced, concerning which the damage done to a richer person must be disregarded whenever it vehemently afflicts \[him\]'.207
Thus, the just price does not provide a fair standard to determine who has a right to legal aid and who does not. Pufendorf favours a more personalized standard.208 First, the lesion must be considered in absolute numbers. Secondly, this absolute number should be related to the prejudiced's wealth. For example, damages of 1000 guilders constitute an enormous prejudice for someone with an annual income of 6000 guilders, whereas the same loss would not even lead a millionaire to blinking his eye.
In the work of Domat we even read that the remedy for lesion beyond moiety has been abolished in France for the buyer. It was the wish to make legal practice workable which lead to this limitation of the remedy. Despite Domat conceding that natural law forbids whatever lesion, commercial reasons demand to withold a remedy for it to the buyer 'parce qu'il y auroit trop d'inconveniens de resoudre les ventes par l'excès du prix'.209
Domat, in excluding the buyer from the remedy, adopts Automne's and Cujas' positions210, whereas Pothier acknowledges that both buyer and seller are obliged to restore contractual fairness, if breached. Yet, liberty of commerce prevents granting the parties going back on an agreement in which there is not a lesion beyond moiety.211 According to Pothier, an all too readily available remedy to rescind a sale would frighten people off from concluding contracts as they can easily be annulled.212 For that matter, only
207 Pufendorf, De iure naturae, 5.3.9, p. 629: 'neque de iure naturae requiritur ut illa inaequalitas dimidiam partem justi pretii excedat. Nam famosa illa l. 2. C. de rescindenda vendit... est mere positiva et nititur ea potissimum ratione, quod nulla tribunalia sint suffectura expediendis litibus, si ob quamcunque minutam laesionem praetor posset adiri... Nam utut in exigui momenti negotiis praetor non sit fatigandus, tamen cur iste subsidium suum velit denegare, ubi quis graviter, etsi intra dimidium, fuerit laesus, ratio non est. V.g. si domum, quae 900 erat, pro 600 vendiderim, cur ad 300 recuperanda omne mihi legis auxilium denegetur, cum ob longe minores summas actio detur? Inde uti et inter eos qui solo naturae et gentium jure reguntur exigua laesio quae citra dolum contrahentium intervenit, rescissioni aut querela sat idoneam causam non praebet. Ita ubi gravior illa fuerit, licet dimidium justi pretiii non attingens, recte postulatur contractum vel rescindi, vel quod justo pretio deest suppleri. Gravitas autem laesionis aestimatur vel ex ipsa pretii magnitudine, vel ex tenuibus laesi facultatibus, quas damnum opulentori negligendum quandoque vehementer affligit'.
208 This is, however, not the same as a subjective price estimation, as Schulze and Langer would have it. After all, in Pufendorf's view the lesion itself is still calculated on the basis of objective criteria. The subjective factor consists in weighing the lesion in relation up against the prejudiced party's personal circumstances. Cf. Langer, Laesio enormis, p. 62; Schulze, Die Laesio, p. 35.
209 Domat, Les lois, 1.2.2, no. 26, p. 125; idem, 1.2.9, no. 1, p. 151: '...il est de l'interêt public, de ne pas troubler le commerce des vente, par de trop frequentes lesions'; Domat, Legum delectus, lib. 18, tit. v, p. 198: 'Si res minus dimidia veri pretii venierit, rescinditur venditio'. That is, only a seller (who venierit) can rescind a sale (venditio) because of lesion beyond moiety.
210 See 4.3.4.
211 Pothier, Vente, vol. 1, 5.2, no. 372, p. 365: 'Mais elle est fondée sur un principe tiré de la nature des
contrats commutatifs, dans lesquels chacune des parties contractantes n'entend donner ce qu'elle donne, que pour recevoir l'équivalent; d'où il suit que ces contrats sont vicieux, et doivent être comme tels rescindés, lorsque l'une des parties y souffre un lésion énorme et ne reçois pas à beaucoup près l'équivalent de ce qu'elle donne'.
212 Pothier, Obligations, vol.1, 1.3.4, p. 47: '...le for intérieur oblige à suppléer le juste prix; néanmoins dans le for extérieur, les majeurs ne sont point écoutés à se plaindre de leurs conventions, pour cause de
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