Page 390 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CODES OF CIVIL LAW
Given this history, the least likely occurrence came to pass in 1889. 'The Committee \[of 1851\], seeing so much disagreement of and conflicts among the various Codes and weighing up the pros and cons concerning the two aspects of justice and convenience, finally decided to dismiss this kind of rescission', so Goyena remarks.280 Spain, the cradle of the remedy for lesion beyond moiety applied in its fullest scope, has to do completely without in its Código civil.281
Similar to the debate in the Netherlands, among the objections raised by Goyena are those once put forward by Pufendorf and Thomasius. The criteria used to establish a lesion beyond moiety Goyena considers arbitrary, the theory of dolus in re ipsa unconvincing, and the just price impossible to determine. Finally, Goyena changes his tune somewhat to that of a 19th century laissez faire liberal. He contends that, if one allows the remedy for lesion beyond moiety in the case of immovables, it would be inconsistent to exclude it from movables. However, seeing that the majority of transactions concern movables, the possibility of reconsidering contracts concluded about movables would create chaos and the ruin of industry and commerce.282 'This source \[of judicial strive\] remains filled up', Goyena assuredly concludes.283
Manresa y Navarro also rejects the remedy for lesion beyond moiety in the strongest terms. 'Lesion really is an evident economic absurdity, defended with reference to an erroneous idea of equity'.284 To Manresa y Navarro the difficulties lie in the seemingly problematic estimation of the just price. Furthermore, he senses arbitrariness in granting a remedy to a party prejudiced for one penny more than half the item's just price but withholding it from one who lacked a penny for his prejudice being able to qualify as lesion beyond moiety. Therefore, in keeping with local custom which adhered to the maxim that 'a thing is worth so much as it can be sold for', article 1293 explicitly denies a remedy for
there was a lesion beyond moiety as a purely practical matter (cuestión de hecho) and as such not admissible to revision in appeal. Perhaps that is the reason why later case law reports - I checked until 1871 - no longer contain cases about the remedy. In all studied reports the search terms acciones personales, contrato, obligaciones, vicios, saneamiento, redhibitoria, quanti minoris, compraventa or venta yielded no examples of remedies specifically meant for latent defects.
280 Goyena, Concordancias, vol. 3, p. 180: 'La Comision, en vista de tanta discordancia y contradicción entre los Códigos, y pesado el pro y contra bajo el doble aspecto de justicia y conveniencia, se decidió al fin por rechazar esta especie de rescisión'.
281 This does not alter the fact that local custom could still apply the remedy for lesion beyond moiety, seeing that the Código civil was a subsidiary source of law, as follows from article 5 of the Ley the Bases. Manresa y Navarro inserted this law in its entirety in his Commentarios, vol. 1, pp. 1ff; cf. 'Sentencias', in: Colección legislativa, 1864, vol. 2, no. 89, p. 298. Catalan law was applied in this case, which took the remedy for lesion beyond moiety from the subsidiary ius commune; Becker is imprecise when he asserts that articles 1293 and 1294 of the Código are about the remedy for lesion beyond moiety in general. In accordance with article 1291, they only apply to contracts which involve tutors or absentees. On the whole, Becker appears to have missed the Código's subsidiary character in relation with the regional fueros. Cf. Becker, Die Lehre, p. 150.
282 Goyena, Concordancias, vol. 3, p. 181: 'Y no olvideis, que las ventas y negociaciones industriales son hoy día mas importantes que las de los bienes inmuebles: si no envolveis en la rescision las primeras, sois inconsiguientes: si las envolveis, introduscis el caos: matais la industria y el comercio'.
283 Goyena, Concordancias, vol. 3, p. 181: 'este manantial queda cegado'.
284 Manresa y Navarro, Commentarios, vol. 8, p. 740: 'La lesión es, en efecto, un absurdo económico
evidente, defendido por una idea errónea de la equidad'.
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