Page 397 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER SEVEN
means of an ordinary remedy. Justified exceptions must be formulated in positive law.319 For unclear reasons, Savigny admits the aedilician remedies as such, but refutes the remedy for lesion beyond moiety as an exception to this rule.320
Considered against the background of the 19th century laissez faire climate, Savigny's dismissal of the remedy for lesion beyond moiety is not really unusual. Illustrative of the liberal views current at the time is Dernburg's wholesale refutation of the requirement of a just price in sales. He believes it to be at odds with the freedom of contracting parties to agree whatever price suits them. Dernburg thus sets no boundaries to the degree to which parties are free to deceive each other.321 Brinz (1820-1887)322 similarly believes that in sales law 'no one has to care for another. Each only needs to pursue his own advantage'.323 In the same vein, Keller (1799-1860)324 argues that an objective yardstick to measure a contract's fairness irrespective of the parties' wills does not exist.325 The conclusion that the roots of the remedy for lesion beyond moiety are doubtful is drawn by Arndts von Arnesberg (1803-1878).326 Observing that almost all codes differently regulate or even dismiss rescission due to lesion beyond moiety, Arnesberg concludes that the practical value of C. 4.44.2 is dubious.327
In accordance with the views sketched above, the Prussian lawgiver decided to exclude the remedy for lesion beyond moiety from its 19th century Codes. First, article 286 of the HGB of 1861 decrees that commercial transactions cannot be rescinded because of a disproportionate prejudice, 'in particular because of lesion beyond moiety'.328 The main reason for abolishing the remedy in commercial transactions, put forward during the preparatory discussions on the HGB, was that professional merchants are presumed to be aware of the quality of the things they trade. In addition, the abolishment of the remedy for a disproportionate price would enhance legal certainty. If the HGB had not regulated the matter, the subject would still be governed by the civil codes and usus modernus in force at the time of the HGB's promulgation in 1861 throughout the various parts of the German
319 Savigny, System, vol. 3, Beylage 8, p. 355: 'Es ist also der durch Irrthum veranlaßte Vertrag weder schon an sich selbst ungültig, noch auch durch eine gewöhnliche Klage oder durch eine Restitution zu entkräften möglich'.
320 Savigny, System, vol. 3, Beylage 8, no. 11, p. 358.
321 Dernburg, Pandekten, vol. 2, § 94, p. 258: 'Dem Sachwerth gleich – justum – muss der Kaufpreis nicht
sein. Vielmehr darf man theurer verkaufen und wohlfeil verkaufen. Es gilt Vertragsfreiheit'.
322 G. Wesenberg, 'Brinz, Alois Ritter von, in: NDB, 2 (1955), p. 617.
323 Brinz, Lehrbuch, vol. 2.2, § 329, p. 750: '... das Kaufsrecht, wonach keiner für den andern zu sorgen,
jeder nur seinen Vortheil zu verfolgen braucht (D. 4.4.16.4)'.
324 J. K. Bluntschli, 'Keller, Friedrich Ludwig, in: ADB, 15 (1882), pp. 570-579
325 Keller, Pandekten, vol. 2, § 332, p. 73: 'Daß bei Zweiseitigen Geschäften Leistung und Gegenleistung in
einem richtigen und billigen Verhältniß zu einander stehen, ist in gewissem Grade ein Postulat der Moral des Verkehrs. Dafür gibt es aber keinen allgemeinen objectiven Maßstab, welcher durch seine Wahrheit und Sicherheit im Gebiete des Rechts dem Willen der Contrahirenden übergeordnet zu werden verdiente'.
326 G. Wesenberg, 'Arndts von Arnesberg, Ludwig', in: NDB, 1 (1953), pp. 363-364.
327 Arndts von Arnesberg, Lehrbuch, § 307, p. 588: 'Diese Differenzen beweisen wohl, daß die fragliche
Bestimmung \[sc. C. 4.44.2\] überhaupt von sehr zweifelhaften Werthe ist'.
328 Art. 286 HGB: 'Wegen übermäßiger Verletzung, insbesondere wegen Verletsung über die Hälfte, können
Handelsgeschäfte nicht angefochten werden'; Langer, Laesio enormis, p. 79. 393