Page 431 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CONTEMPORARY CIVIL LAW
8.6 The Austrian Allgemeine Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch of 1811
The Austrian Allgemeine Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch of 1811 had much in common with the ALR. Gewährleistung in the ABGB was defined similarly broad and encompassed the seller's duty to safeguard from defects, eviction and unusual encumbrances. Both the ALR and ABGB based their provisions about the seller's safeguarding duties - of which safeguarding from defects in the sold thing was one - on the general need to remedy 'Äquivalenzstörungen' caused by a disproportionality between the mutual performances of the parties to the contract.129 These principles survived the reform of the ABGB in 1916 and the implementation of Directive 1999/44/EC in 2002130, so that the natural law-concept of fairness in exchange appears fully alive and well in a code still in force in the 21st century.
Unlike in the Dutch BW 1838, the boundaries in the ABGB between non- performance and the seller's duty to safeguard from, among other things, defects in purchased goods, had over the years become clearly established. Until delivery of the thing, the seller's breaches of contract are to be understood as non-performance. Once the goods have been delivered, the seller can no longer commit non-performance. All breaches of contract from that moment on are to be considered as breaches of safeguarding duties.131
Moreover, the ABGB's remedies for error, loss due to fault (verschuldeter Schaden)132, loss due to the seller's deliberate fraud133, and breach of Gewährleistung are not mutually exclusive. A buyer whose remedy for breach of safeguarding duty has, in the event of movables, expired after six months, can still bring a remedy for error or for loss caused by the seller's fault or fraud. The remedy for error lasts for three years counted from the conclusion of the contract.134 The remedies for loss due to the seller's fault or deliberate fraud also last for three years with the addition that their limitation does not start before the creditor gains knowledge of the loss and the person who has inflicted it.135 Finally, there is also a 30-year remedy in the event the contract was concluded under
129 Barta, Grundriss, p. 459: 'Unser Rechtsinstitut dient dazu, um bei entgeltliche Geschäften Äquivalenzstörungen, die durch den (bereits erfolgten) Leistungsaustausch entstanden sind, zu beseitigen oder doch zu mildern'; the Oberster Gerichtshof rejects compensation for loss due to breach of Gewährleistung which would put the buyer into a better position than he would have been in, if the contract had been carried out correctly. See OGH 5 March 2009, 1Ob16/09y, no. 2: 'eine dem schadenersatzrechtlichen Ausgleichsgedanken widersprechende Bereicherung'; OGH 7 April 2011, 2Ob135/10g, no. 6: '...schadenersatzrechtlichen Ausgleichsgedanken...'
130 BGBl., I, no. 48, 2001.
131 Barta, Grundriss, p. 460.
132 § 1295 (1) ABGB: § 1295: Jedermann ist berechtigt, von dem Beschädiger den Ersatz des Schadens,
welchen dieser ihm aus Verschulden zugefügt hat, zu fordern; der Schade mag durch Übertretung einer
Vertragspflicht oder ohne Beziehung auf einen Vertrag verursacht worden sein.
133 § 1324 ABGB.
134 § 1487 ABGB; OGH 27 April 1976, 3Ob511/76 (error); Barta, Grundriss, pp. 346, 470; Riedler,
'Systemfragen', p. 361.
135 OGH 7 March 1990, 1Ob536/90; § 1324 and § 1489 ABGB (limitation); Barta, Grundriss, pp. 470-471:
'Seither besteht uneingeschränkter Konkurrenz zwischen Gewährleistungs und Schadenersatzansprüchen'.
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