Page 377 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER SEVEN
the remedies for Gewährleistung, which, as told, start to run with the delivery of the object. All the foregoing constitutes a breach with ius commune-theory in which the remedies for price reduction and rescission were subject to distinct periods of limitation and in which the remedy for eviction and knowingly selling a defective thing were subject to the general 30-year period of limitation.205 In particular, the fact that the remedy for damages is perceived as distinct of the remedy for breach of Gewährleistung is innovative. We see in the next chapter that civil codes which do not separate the remedies for repair of the breach of safeguarding duty and remedies for damages irrespective of how the promisor responded to the remedy based on Gewährleistung engender difficulties. In many civil codes, the general remedies available for damages overlap with the remedies particularly provided for breach of safeguarding duties. Difficulties often arise, if a breach of safeguarding duties results in damages, because then both remedies for the breach and for damages become available. Which limitation applies to such a case? By separating the remedies for breach of safeguarding duties and those for damages, the ABGB already at its earliest stage manages to prevent similar problems of concurrence. Damages can
always be sued for within three years after these have become known to the recipient.
7.4.4 Lesion beyond moiety (laesio enormis)
Thomasius' rejection of the remedy for lesion beyond moiety appears not to have made any headway in Austria. The Codex Theresianus (1776) applied the remedy in its most extended form to all kinds of goods and to both buyer and seller. It only reduced its field of application somewhat by requiring the value of the contract's object to be at least 100 guilders. The modifications of the Codex Theresianus drafted by Horten (1772-1786) and Martini (1790-1797) further limited the remedy by maintaining the mentioned requirement and applying the remedy only to sales and barter. In addition, Martini had its period of limitation reduced to five years.206
Yet, the ABGB of 1811 harks back to the Codex Theresianus of 1776 and extensively allows for rescission for lesion beyond moiety in § 934 ABGB. The required minimum value of the earlier draft Codices was abolished and the remedy made applicable to all reciprocal contracts.207
According to Schulze, the acceptance of the remedy for lesion beyond moiety in the ABGB was mainly due to Zeiller's efforts who supposedly went against the natural law
durch Übertretung einer Vertragsplicht oder ohne Beziehung auf einen Vertrag verursacht worden sein... ; Kaiserliche Verordnung vom 19. März 1916, in: Reichsgesetzblatt, vol. 38, no. 69, p. 160; Zeiller, Commentar, vol. 4, to § 1489, p. 249
205 See 7.1; Klang, Kommentar, 4.1, p. 500.
206 Schulze, Die laesio, pp. 99-102.
207 § 934 ABGB: Hat bey zweyseitig verbindlichen Geschäften ein Theil nicht einmahl die Hälfte dessen,
was er dem anderen gegeben hat, von diesem an dem gemeinen Werthe erhalten; so räumet das Gesetz dem verletzten Theile das Recht ein, die Aufhebung und die Herstellung in den vorigen Stand zu fordern. Dem anderen Theile stehet aber bevor, das Geschäft dadurch aufrecht zu erhalten, daß er den Abgang bis zum gemeinen Werthe zu ersetzen bereit ist. Das Mißverhältniß des Werthes wird nach dem Zeitpuncte des geschlossenen Geschäftes bestimmt.
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