Page 381 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER SEVEN 7.5.1 Structure of the Burgerlijk wetboek 1838
Unlike the Code civil, the BW 1838 does not explicitly proffer the commutative character of contracts in which both parties have to perform. The BW's 1838 drafters omitted the Code civil's articles 1102 – 1104 Cc, according to Asser, because 'these are merely doctrinal, familiar to every legal scholar and devoid of any practical effect'.227 Stating thus, Asser seems to acknowledge that contracts in which both parties have to perform are commutative and to take the Code civil's natural law roots for granted for the BW 1838 as well.
The BW's 1838 structure regarding the promisor's duties to safeguard from latent defects resembles that of the Code civil. In keeping with the French code and unlike the ALR or ABGB, it does not phrase duties to safeguard from latent defects, encumbrances and eviction in general terms. The provisions governing the duties to safeguard from latent defects are placed in the section on the sales contract.228 Of these, article 1510 sums up the seller's duties. He has to deliver the thing and safeguard it.229 Article 1527, which is a translation of article 1625 Cc, reads, similar to the Code civil, that the BW 1838 distinguishes between safeguarding from eviction and from latent defects.230 What these duties entail follows in the articles 1528-1539 (eviction) and 1540-1548 (latent defects).
Besides the remedies for latent defects, the BW 1838 contains remedies for non- or mal- performance in articles 1279-1288 BW 1838. The line between latent defects and other instances of breach of contract drawn in this code is thin. As a result, judges at times held that a buyer of a thing which appeared to be defective would nevertheless have to bring a remedy for non-performance or vice versa.231 Driven by the wish to end this legal uncertainty, already soon after the BW's entering into force, Dutch legal scholars urged for merging the remedies for non-performance and latent defects into one remedy for malperformance (wanprestatie). Yet, such did not happen until the introduction of the New Dutch Civil Code in the second half of the 20th century, which is discussed in the last chapter of this book.232
Finally, another major difference between the Code civil and the BW 1838 is worth
227 Asser, Het Nederlandsch burgerlijk wetboek vergeleken, p. 478: 'dezelve zijn louter leerstellig, iederen regtsgeleerde bekend, en geene praktische resultaten teweeg brengen'.
228 In book III, title V, section II, artt. 1540 – 1548 BW 1838.
229 Art. 1510 BW 1838 (= 1603 Cc).
230 Art. 1527: De vrijwaring waartoe de verkooper jegens den kooper gehouden is, heeft twee strekkingen,
namelijk, voor eerst, het rustig en vreedzaam bezit van de verkochte zaak; ten tweede, de verborgene gebreken dier zaak, of dezoodanige die aanleiding geven to vernietiging van den koop; For a lucid description of the articles and of their sometimes curious, even clumsy rendering in Dutch, see Opzoomer, Het burgerlijk wetboek verklaard, vol. 8, pp. 102ff. E.g. article 1527 mentions 'de strekking verborgen gebreken te vrijwaren' which makes in English 'the aim to ensure latent defects'. The French 'deux objects' should never have been translated as 'twee strekkingen'. Having summed op numerous other flaws, Opzoomer dismisses the article as an 'in a practical sense utterly useless introduction to the rest of the section (practisch volstrekt onnoodige inleiding tot de rest der afdeeling)'.
231 Star Busmann gives the example of a horse which appeared younger than the buyer could rightly have expected. Rechtbank Groningen nevertheless dismissed a remedy for latent defects. Star Busmann, Verklaring, vol. 5.1, p. 76; Nauta, 'Preadvies', pp. 54-59, 67.
232 See 8.2.
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