Page 373 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER SEVEN
7.4 The Österreichische Allgemeine Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch (1811)
Similar to other European states vying for military and cultural hegemony, Austrian rulers tried to keep up with contemporary developments and started their own codification projects. In 1811 the Austrian Allgemeine Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch (ABGB) entered into force with which Austria put itself on the map again alongside Frederic II's Prussia and Napoléon Bonaparte's France. The following sections explore this strongly natural law inspired code for its rules about limitation of the remedies for defects in the thing exchanged and more generally its drawings of the remedy for lesion beyond moiety. This is primarily done by studying the provision of the code itself and the work of the ABGB's fountainhead, Franz Alois Edler von Zeiller (1751-1828), professor of natural law and the Institutes at the university of Vienna.181
7.4.1 Structure of the Allgemeine Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch
In keeping with natural law theory and similar to the Prussian ALR, the ABGB contains an extensive general part on the law of obligations. Depicting the general theory of contracts in neutral terminology, the code reasons from a general conception of duties and rights which apply to all contracts. For example, the ground rule that 'contracts must be kept'182, invokes a right for the 'promisor (promissar)' to enforce a contract. The neutral term promisor can mean either seller, lessor, depositor or whatever promising party to a contract. Another example of the use of language which cannot be directly related to a particular contract is that the duty to safeguard is described in terms of 'someone (jemand)' who has to ensure 'another (einem Anderen)' the explicitly warranted or normally present qualities of the item handed over.183
Similar to the ALR, the ABGB's provisions regarding remedies for defects in the thing contractually agreed on are in a chapter on contracts in general (Von Verträgen überhaupt).184 Paragraphs 923 - 932 sum up the promisor's safeguarding duties. Paragraph 933 provides the limitation periods of remedies for a breach of safeguarding duties. Paragraphs 932, 871 and 872 describe the consequences of such a breach in terms of error.185
Unlike the ALR, the ABGB's provisions concerning the remedy for lesion beyond moiety are also in the general part on contracts.186 That this remedy is explained here and not in the chapter about the sales contract is illustrative of the fact that the ABGB's drafters
181 C. von Wurzbach, 'Zeiller, Franz Alois Edler von', in: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich, vol. 59, pp. 283–287; more recent: <www.austria-forum > AEIOU > Zeiller, Franz Anton>.
182 Zeiller, Commentar, vol. 3.1, § 861, p. 8: 'Das Prinzip des ganzen Vertragsrechtes ist: Verträge müssen
gehalten werden.'
183 § 922 ABGB: Wenn jemand eine Sache auf eine entgeldliche Art einem Anderen überläßt; so leistet er
Gewähr, daß sie die ausdrücklich bedungenen, oder gewöhnlich dabey voraus gesetzten Eigenschaften habe, und daß sie der Natur des Geschäftes, oder der getroffenen Verabredung gemäß benützt und verwendet werden könne.
184 Chapter 17, §§ 859-937.
185 See 7.4.2.1.
186 §§ 934-935.
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