Page 370 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CODES OF CIVIL LAW
the remedy for lesion beyond moiety. The Code civil considerably shortens this period to two years.169 During the preparatory meetings for the Code civil, limitation periods were proposed ranging from six months to two years. The citoyen Créte argued that, if creditors were given only two months to inspect whether they had been prejudiced by the sale of things pledged to them, why should an ordinary seller have two years to come back from a sale?170 Portalishastopulloutallthestopstoconvincethegatheringthatadecreasefrom ten years to one was too rigid. First, he throws in an historical argument; according to customary French law, the remedy could be brought during ten years. Secondly, the remedy safeguarded the interests of women and minors and should therefore never be limited to as short a period as one year only.171 Finally, invoking natural equity, Portalis warns against reducing the remedy's life-span to a period which would render it virtuously obsolete.172
Portalis received powerful support. Napoleon himself used Portalis' argument that family property should be protected from being sold frivolously and that the remedy should not be rendered illusory by reducing its limitation period to less than two years.173 Interestingly, Napoleon dropped a hint in the direction of a four year limitation period, which is the period that had been current in Castile since the promulgation of the 13th century statute Las Siete Partidas and the knowledge of which had become widely known in Europe through the works of scholars such as Gómez and Covarrubias.174
7.3.4.3 Just price
Thomasius had held that the only just price was that which the contracting parties had agreed on. Portalis rejects this view. The just price covers more than only the contracting
169 Art. 1676 Cc: La demande n'est plus recevable après l'expiration de deux années, à compter du jour de la vente; see 6.3.2.
170 Portalis, Discours, p. 422: 'On n´accorde, dit il \[sc. le citoyen Crétet\], que deux mois à des créanciers pour reconnaître si la vente de leur gage leur est préjudiciable et pour surenchérir, pourquoi accorderait- on deux ans à un vendeur? Six mois devraient lui suffire; mais pour n'être pas trop rigoureux, on peut lui donner un an'; Crétet here refers to a contract in which the debtor gives a thing in pledge (gage). If the debtor does not perform his contractual duties, the creditor could demand a judge that the gage become his by means of payment of the debt. Alternatively, the creditor could ask the judge permission to sell the gage by auction. Crétet seems to hold that a creditor has two months two check whether or not he had been prejudiced by the auction. Art. 2071, 2073 and 2078 Cc (provisions scrapped in 2011); Marcadé, Explication, vol. 9, nos. 1149seq, pp. 638seq.
171 Portalis, Discours, p. 422: 'On n´accorde, dit il \[sc. le citoyen Crétet\], que deux mois à des créanciers pour reconnaître si la vente de leur gage leur est préjudiciable et pour surenchérir, pourquoi accorderait- on deux ans à un vendeur? Six mois devraient lui suffire; mais pour n'être pas trop rigoureux, on peut lui donner un an. Le citoyen Portalis combatte cette proposition. Il observe d'abord qu'autrefois l'action en rescision subsistait pendant dix ans, et que c'est en abréger prodigieusement la durée que de la réduire à deux. Il ajoute qu'elle exitera au profit des femmes, des mineurs, enfin de tous ceux que la loi regarde comme privilégiés, et que par cette raison elle n'a pas soumis à la prescription ordinaire; il est difficile de la réduire à l'égard de toutes ces personnes à une durée d'un an'.
172 Ibidem, p. 416: 'On objecte enfin qu'il est dangereux de laisser la propriété incertaine. Il se peut qu'un terme de dix ans soit trop long. Rien ne s'oppose à ce qu'on donne à l'action une durée moins longue: mais s'il fallait la sacrifier en entier à cette crainte de laisser un moment la propriété incertaine, ce serait sacrifier l'équité même, et alors l'action de dol, d'erreur, et beaucoup d'autres ne peuvent plus subsister'.
173 Fenet, Recueil, vol. 14, p. 69; Troplong, De la vente, vol. 2, no. 80, p. 322.
174 See 3.4.2.
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