Page 359 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER SEVEN
The only difference is that the choice to keep the contract intact or to annul it is not granted to the party who had caused the damages but to the party who is prejudiced.
7.2.4.2 Limitation periods
With regard to the remedy's limitation, the ALR also chose its own path. Scholars prior to the ALR held on to what had been taught for hundreds of years in ius commune-theory, viz. that the remedy was perpetual. Schmid has it lasting for 30 years in accordance with C. 7.39.3-4.113 Westphal attributes a 30-year limitation period to the remedy for lesion beyond moiety, because, according to him, it has to be seen as an action aimed at restoring the parties' original positions (restitutio in integrum).114 Also arguing from ius commune-civil law, Thibaut states that all remedies are perpetual, unless decreed otherwise. Seeing that the latter is not the case for the remedy for lesion beyond moiety, we can assume that Thibaut regarded it as perpetual.115
The ALR, contrariwise, opts for the short limitation periods of Gewährleistung in I, V, 8, § 343.116 As observed earlier in this chapter, contrary to usus modernus-practice, the ALR regulated the limitation periods for the remedies for safeguarding the thing's use, quality and property in accordance with whether the object of the contract was a movable or immovable. Now that the ALR similarly applies this approach to lesion beyond moiety, it has streamlined the limitation of all remedies which may concur in the event a defect, third- party claim or encumbrance caused a prejudice to the buyer of more than half the thing's just price.117
Seen against the backdrop of contemporary doctrine in the German regions, the ALR's outlook in this respect appears rather revolutionary.118 Yet, in other parts of Europe the limitation period of the remedy for lesion beyond moiety had already been brought back to four or two years. In Spain, this development had taken place in the 16th century. Moreover, in France, Pothier had advocated a substantial reduction of the remedy's life- spanto10years.119 Whatis,however,noticeable,isthatwhereasPothierandtheCastilian scholars left the limitation periods of the aedilician remedies and the remedies for eviction intact, the ALR furnishes all these and the remedy for lesion beyond moiety with the same duration. A common sense step, so it seems, since it only gives cause to legal disputes, if
113 Schmid, Practisches Lehrbuch, § 947, p. 502, note P.
114 Westphal, Lehre, § 810, p. 608; similarly Glück, Ausführliche Erläuterung, § 1029, p. 69. Yet, a restitutio
in integrum induced other ius commune-scholars to argue in favour of a four year limitation period. Cf.
Roman-Dutch positions in 5.3.2.
115 Thibaut, System, II, § 1034, p. 408; idem, § 1036, p. 411-413.
116 I, XI, § 68 ALR: Endlich, wenn er innerhalb der Tit. V. §. 343. bestimmten Frist die Aufhebung des
Vertrags aus diesem Grunde nicht nachgesucht hat; Klein, System, I, I.XI, 3, § 269, p. 286: Der Verkäufer kann sich auf eine Verletzung über die Hälfte nicht berüfen, auch geht das Recht des Käufers, sie zu rügen binnen der T.5, §343 des A.L.R. und §116 d. LB.bestimmten Frist verloren (§68, 69 h.t.).
117 I, XI, § 68 ALR jo. I, V, § 343 ALR (lesion beyond moiety), I, V, § 343 ALR jo. § 319 (lack of qualities the thing normally possesses), I, V, § 343 ALR jo. § 323 (eviction), I, V, § 343 ALR jo. § 329 (lack of promised qualities) I, V, § 343 ALR jo. §§ 333-334 (encumbrances).
118 Cf. Schulze, Die Laesio, p. 89.
119 For Spain see 3.4.2; for the French scholars see 6.3.2.
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