Page 52 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn
P. 52
CHAPTER TWO
sellers.73 It seems that according to D. 21.1.61 the seller is always liable for price reduction, no matter whether or not he knew about the servitude. Neither do C. 4.58.4.1 and D. 21.1.49 inform the reader about the meaning of the seller's knowledge.74
Other texts about encumbrances on land seem to exclude unknowing sellers from any liability and demand breach of an explicit guarantee as to the absence of burdens on the land sold in order to grant a remedy under the contract.75 All this, however, is at odds with the rule formulated in D. 19.1.13(14)pr. that a knowing seller has to compensate for all loss and that an ignorant seller does not have to account for more than a reduction of price. Moreover, according to C. 4.49.9 a capitatio, an additional tax, that proved higher than expected, triggers a remedy for price reduction irrespective of the seller's knowledge, whereas in D. 19.1.21(22).1 a tributum, the tax on provincial land, only allows for a remedy, if the seller knew about it.76
To conclude, Justinianic law governing the sales of burdened land varies significantly from the more coherent law about latent defects found in the title on the aedilician edict and the action on the sales contracts.
Ius commune-scholars set themselves the task of creating some coherence in the jungle which legal liability for encumbrances on immovables presents. Regarding liability for servitudes, some glossators seem to opt for granting the buyer a price reduction where the seller had not mentioned the existence of a servitude, although he
73 D. 21.1.61: 'Ulpianus libro 80 ad edictum: Quotiens de servitute agitur, victus tantum debet praestare, quanti minoris emisset emptor, si scisset hanc servitutem impositam'; Lokin e.a., Het Rooms-Friese recht, p. 148-149.
74 C. 4.58.4.1: 'Idem observatur et si pestibilis fundus, id est pestibulas vel herbas letiferas habens, ignorante emptore distractus sit: nam in hoc etiam casu per eandem actionem eum quoque redhibendum esse. * DIOCL. ET MAXIM. AA. *<A . K. MART.>'; D. 21.1.49: 'Ulpianus libro octavo disputationum Etiam in fundo vendito redhibitionem procedere nequaquam incertum est, veluti si pestilens fundus distractus sit: nam redhibendus erit. Et benignum est dicere vectigalis exactionem futuri temporis post redhibitionem adversus emptorem cessare'.
75 D. 18.1.59: 'Celsus libro octavo digestorum: Cum venderes fundum, non dixisti "ita ut optimus maximusque": verum est, quod Quinto Mucio placebat, non liberum, sed qualis esset, fundum praestari oportere. Idem et in urbanis praediis dicendum est'; similarly D. 19.1.41; D. 21.2.75; liability for all loss in D. 19.1.35.
76 D. 19.1.21(22).1: 'Si praedii venditor non dicat de tributo sciens, tenetur ex empto: quod si ignorans non praedixerit, quod forte hereditarium praedium erat, non tenetur'; C. 4.49.9: Imperatores Diocletianus, Maximianus: Si minor a venditore sive sciente sive ignorante dicebatur capitatio praedii venditi et maior inventa sit, in tantum convenitur, quanto, si scisset emptor ab initio, minus daret pretii. Sin vero huiusmodi onus et gravamen functionis cognovisset, nullam adversus venditorem habet actionem * DIOCL. ET MAXIM. AA. ET CC. AURELIAE ZANIAE ANTIPATRAE. *<A 293 S. XV K. IUN. PHILIPPOPOLI AA. CONSS.>; cf. Hallebeek, 'The Ignorant Seller’s Liability', p. 206.
38
