Page 355 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER SEVEN
grounds of non-performance by the recipient of their wares.
The question about the limitation period of remedies for non-performance was also
raised and answered in front of the highest appellate Court of Prussia at the time, the Royal Obertribunal. This court decided in 1859 that the short limitation periods for remedies for breach of Gewährleistung of § 344 did not apply to §§ 285-291, which contain remedies for non-performance. Koch argues that the general 30-year limitation of § 620 underlies these provisions because they are based on the promisor's fault (Verschuldung). As fault does not play a role in a breach of Gewährleistung, a shorter limitation is fairer towards the party who without fault caused the breach, so Koch seems to reason. By and large, however, one can conclude with Koch that the ALR 'in Folge der Verwisschung oder vielmehr Verdunkelung der Spezifizirung der Klagen' does not provide clear rules on the limitation of remedies for non-performance.87
Significantly less ambiguous is the ALR's arrangement of the remedy for lesion beyond moiety which is the subject matter of the following sections.
7.2.4 Lesion beyond moiety (laesio enormis)
The doctrine immediately prior to the ALR's acquiring force of law fully accepted the validity of the remedy for lesion beyond moiety.88 Schmid justified its existence by referring to the natural law requirement of fairness in exchange which governed reciprocal contracts.89 Thibaut, under reference to a plethora of contemporary jurists defending the remedy, likewise applied it to all contracts in which both parties have to perform.90 Legal practice also allowed for a remedy for lesion beyond moiety for sellers, as can be read in a 1843 case decided by the Obertribunal. The judges refer to a 1832 sentence by the Hofgericht of Arnsberg91, which had found in favour of a seller who had in keeping with ususmodernus-theory92 startedproceedingsforhavingsoldaplotoflandforlessthanhalf its just price.93
Thomasius, however, had attacked the remedy as being an instance of a chimerical
87 Koch, Allgemeines Landrecht, I, § 320, p. 334, fn. 62.
88 Westphal, Lehre, § 801seq., pp. 603ff.; Glück, Ausführliche Erläuterung, § 1029seq., pp. 66ff.; for an
overview of usus modernus-scholars defending the remedy see 6.3.2.
89 Schmid, Practisches Lehrbuch, § 943, pp. 500-501; I do not understand Schulze's remark that natural
law theory necessarily concludes to the abolishment of the remedy for lesion beyond moiety. Schulze,
Die Laesio, p. 83.
90 Thibaut, System, I, § 197, pp. 148-149; idem, § 155, p. 117; for the natural law basic principles see 6.3.
91 Arnsberg (Arensberg) was part of the Duchy of Westphalia, where the ALR was introduced in 1825.
Cases brought to Court before that year were still to be judged in keeping with local sources. See
Gesetzsammlung, 1825, no. 13, § 17, p. 156.
92 Although the Hofgericht does not explicitly state so, its references to usus modernus-scholars
Lauterbach, Mevius and Leyser surmise that the case was decided by subsidiary ius commune. Vid.
Entscheidungen, 9, 1844, no. 29, p. 429.
93 Entscheidungen, 9, 1844, no. 29, p. 426-427: '...die Wittwe \[hatte\]... wegen behapteter Verletzung über
die Hälfte, die Auflösung des von ihrem Ehemann geschlossenen Verkaufs beantragt .. und es wurde auch durch ein, erst am 8. September 1832 eröffnetes, rechtskräftig gewordenes Urtheil des Hofgerichts zu Arnsberg der vorgedachte Verkaufskontrakt für augehoben under der Käufer schuldig erklärt, den Schultenhof zu Blumenthal mit allem Zubehör gegen Erstattung der Gegenleistungen an die Kläger herauszugeben...'.
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