Page 93 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

EARLY MODERN CASTILIAN LAW
For the forum internum these rules are further elaborated by the early modern Castilian authors central to this chapter.63 Medina acknowledges that a seller who is not aware of the defect and sells a defective thing for the just price it would have had, if it were without a defect, acts without fraud.64 Azpilcueta mentions that this is different, if a seller afterwards learns of the fact that he had sold a defective thing. In that case, he has to make restitution. If he refuses to do so, he sins.65
Regarding the seller who is aware of the damages the defect might cause, Saravia de La Calle, of whom, as far as I can tell, the only thing known is that he wrote an Instrucción de mercaderes muy provechosa for confessors who do not read Latin66, which was printed in 1544, mentions that the seller must reveal the defect under the penalty of making restitution of all damages the buyer suffered.67 Soto similarly explains that the seller should prevent that the buyer runs a risk of harm or damage. Yet, as long as the seller sells his things for a price in conformity with their usefulness, he is acting in conformity with Aquinas' demand and is not held to declare anything.68
Vitoria, Medina, Francisco García (1525-1585)69, Tomás de Mercado (c. 1500- 1575)70 and Molina also state that the knowing seller could be absolved from his duty to inform by lowering the price in relation with the thing's diminished usefulness because of a latent defect.71 They explain this in terms of equity. Molina:
'Divine Thomas contends the following, namely that when the defect does not result in any damage for the buyer, and the contract observes equality, the seller made use of
63 See Hallebeek & Decock, 'Pre-contractual duties', in: TvR (78), 2010, pp. 89-133; García, Tratado, vol. 1, ch. 13, pp. 410seq.
64 Medina, De poenitentia, p. 213: '... Si venditor ignorans rei defectum, eam cum bona fide vendit pro pretio, quod res, si talem defectum non haberet, valeret, a culpa excusatur'.
65 Azpilcueta, Enchiridion, cap. 23, no. 87, fo . 336v: 'Qui vero per ignorantiam emit aut vendit notabiliter iniuste, non peccat, donec id resciverit et satisfacere noluerit, iuxta S. Thom, 2, sec., q. 77, art. 2...'; similarly, Covarrubias in Resolutiones, vol. 2, 2.4, no. 11, fo. 57: 'Et ideo cum is, qui bona fide contraxerit, postmodum cognoverit reipsa proximum laesisse, tenebitur ad huius laesionis restitutionem et compensationem, quandoquidem ad eum pervenerit, vel res ipsa empta, vel pecunia, quae iustum pretium excessit'.
66 De la Calle, Instruccion, fo. 2: '... para informacion de las romancistas confessores tractar la materia dela usura, y del comprar y del vender, y de los cambios lo mas breve que se sufriere, y en el estilo mas claro que pudiere...'.
67 De la Calle, Instruccion, fo. 21: 'Mas es obligado a restitucion del daño luego que sepa del daño. Porque en ningun caso es licito hacer mal al proximo, ni ponerle en peligro. Pues deve luego el mercader proveer que de la tal compra no venga daño ni peligro al que compra'.
68 Soto, De iustitia, to ST 2.2, q. 77, a. 2, fo. 198: \[quinta conclusio\] 'Si venditor caveat damnum dare, puta quod non pluris rem vendat quam cum vitio valet (...) et res sit emptori pro pretii ratione usui, nulla lege compellitur vitium patefacere. Hanc conclusionem non ponit in forma de occulto vitio S. Thom., sed tamen aperte ex praecedenti colligitur. Et ratio est quia venditor eatenus tenetur emptorem admonere quatenus nullis sit ei occasio vel damni vel periculi'.
69 Decock, Theologians, p. 175 (with further references).
70 González García, 'Mercado, Tomás de', in: DBE, vol. 34, p. 718-720.
71 Vitoria, Usuros y contratos, p. 109. This works is an edition and translation Ms. 43, Salamanca, s. XVI.
The manuscript is described in detail in: Lilao Franca (ed.), Catálogo, I, p. 53; García, Tratado, vol. 1, ch. 13, p. 390: 'Por donde aunque el precio se disminuyesse segun requería el valor de la cosa vendida, no por esso dexaría de ser la vendición illicita'; Mercado, lib. II, cap. VIII, fo. 45v: 'En resolución, los vendedores están obligados a bajar tanto del precio cuanto el vicio de la ropa fuera mayor'; Medina, De poenitentia, p. 213ff.
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