Page 363 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER SEVEN
7.3.2 The Code civil on latent defects
French civil law prior to the Code civil was in some regions determined by customary law and in others by Roman law in its ius commune-clothing. In the chapter on natural law the main representatives of both, Bourjon, Domat and Pothier, have all been discussed. In the present chapter recapitulations of their views are made, if necessary for the interpretation of articles in the Code civil. The reader is referred to the previous chapter for a more thorough discussion of how defects in sold and leased out things were solved in French law before the Code civil's entering into force.
7.3.2.1 La garantie in the Code civil
Similar to the Allgemeine Landrecht, the Code civil is suffused with the spirit of early modern natural law theory. The nature of contracts is expressed in terminology already familiar to the reader of this study. Article 1104 explains a contract in which both parties have to perform in accordance with natural law terminology as 'commutative' because both performances have to be of equal worth.133 A breach of this equality causes a duty to restore the contractual imbalance.134 Already deep in the 19th century, Raymond-Théodore Troplong (1795-1869)135 still demonstrates the belief that fairness in exchange should govern the sales contract. He endorses a decision by the Court of Lyon in 1824 to grant the buyer of a dilapidated house a remedy with the argument that 'l'égalité que les parties se sont proposée en contractant est évidemment rompue, et la vente perd son caractère commutatif'.136
The most influential drafter of the Code civil, Portalis, was also the main defender of a natural law view of the workings of the sales contract in particular and of a natural law approach to law in general. He emphasises that the seller's general duty to safeguard the buyer comprises what in ius commune-doctrine went under the denominators of eviction and safeguarding from latent defects. For the rest, he does not add much. The subject matter is arranged in the Code Civil in accordance with the 'hallowed legal prudence of all times and bound to the principles of an everlasting equity', so he informs the reader who is subsequently referred to the draft itself.137
Closer scrutiny of the Code civil reveals that according to article 1603 the seller 'a deux obligations principales, celle de délivrer et celle de garantir la chose qu'il vend.'138 A bit further it is explained that the safeguarding duty concerning the sold object has two
133 Il \[sc. le contrat\] est commutatif lorsque chacune des parties s'engage à donner ou à faire une chose qui est regardée comme l'équivalent de ce qu'on lui donne, ou de ce qu'on fait pour elle.
134 Art. 1136 Cc; art. 1142 Cc; Troplong, De la vente, vol. 2, no. 556, p. 1. See 7.3.4.
135 C. Gau-Cabée, 'Troplong, Raymond-Théodore', in: Dictionnaire, pp. 754-756.
136 Troplong, De la vente, vol. 2, no. 556, p. 18; Marcadé, Explication, vol. 6, p. 286: 'La garantie dont il
s'agit est due pour toute espèce de choses, aussi bien pour de immeubles que pour des meubles...'.
137 Portalis, Discours, p. 248: 'Le projet de loi détermine l'étendue de la garantie, soit en cas d'éviction, soit en cas de défaut ou vices cachés dans la chose vendue. Nous n'entrerons point à cet égard dans de détails inutiles; on se convaincra, par la seule lecture du projet, qu'il ne fait que rappeler des maximes
consacrées par la jurisprudence de tous les temps, et liées aux principes de l'éternelle équité'.
138 The Code civil can be retrieved online at <www.legifrance.gouv.fr>. 359