Page 96 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER THREE
foremost suppose that in that kind of contract it is just to demand equality between price and merchandise, which equality is the see or foundation of commutative justice that must be upheld in these contracts. The reason for that is sufficiently self-evident, since Aristotle in book one of his Republic relates that sale appears to have been introduced for the common good of both \[sc. parties\]. After all, the one needs a thing from the other and vice versa. Now what has been introduced for the common good should not be more detrimental to the one than to the other. Yet, that is the case, when the price exceeds the value of the merchandise and vice versa. Hence, it is necessary for the preservation of justice in contracts that the equality just mentioned is upheld. If not, the contract will remain unjust, since one of the parties receives more, whereas the other receives less. From this it is abundantly clear that in the event equality is not upheld, the excess should be restored by restitution in order that the \[price of the\] thing is brought back to equality'.79
Thus, sales is a contract invented to promote the common good (pro communi utilitate). It is a vehicle to enable the realisation of the parties' needs. Consequently, speaking in the moral terms of the forum internum, it cannot be that the one in the end remains empty handed, whereas the other receives more than he had actually been bargaining for. A just price is meant to prevent such an outcome. De la Calle and Mercado consequently tell us that the reader eager to learn about justice in contracts should always keep in mind that commutative justice presupposes equality in the contract as expressed in a just price.80 'Whether a sale or purchase is just or unjust above all turns around what price has been paid', as Molina puts it.81 This just price becomes the pivot around which early modern scholastic theory about the seller's duties evolves.
However, regarding the deviation of the just price, one caveat should be made. Most
79 Medina, De poenitentia, p. 195; '...redeamus an scilicet lucrum seu res per contractum emptionis seu negotiationis acquisitum sit restituendum et quando? Ad quod illud in primis supponamus in huiusmodi contractu, ut iustus sit debere servari aequalitatem inter pretium et mercem quae aequalitas est sedes, seu fundamentum iustitiae commutativae in huiusmodi contractibus servandae. Huius ratio de se satis clara esse videtur, quia ut tradit Aristot. I, Politicorum, emptio et venditio videtur esse introducta pro communi utilitate utriusque, dum scilicet unus indiget re alterius et econverso. Quod autem pro communi utilitate inductum est, non debet esse magis in gravamen unius, quam alterius, qualiter esset, si pretium excederet valorem mercis, aut econtra. Ac proinde necesse est ad iustitiam contractus, praefatam aequalitatem servari, qua non servata, contractus remanebit iniustus, cum alter eorum plus debito recipiat, alter vero minus. Et inde apertum est in casu, quo praefata aequalitas non servatur, excessum esse restituendum, ita ut res ad aequalitatem reducatur'; similarly, Molina, Opera omnia, vol. 2, disp. 350, no. 5, p. 235.
80 De la Calle, Instruccion, fo. 16v: 'Para lo qual lector siempre tengas delante de los ojos dos presupuestos que se siguien de lo dicho. El primero que te acuerdes que la justicia commutativa consiste en la ygualdad de la cosa y cosa. El segundo que el engaño en las compras y en las ventas y en el logro y en el prestido por esso es pecado porque no consiste en ygualdad y pues todos los contractos son justos quando consisten en ygualdad que es en el justo precio. Conviniente cosa sera determinar primero, qual se el justo precio'; Cf. Albornoz, Arte, tit. 16, fo. 63v: 'esta certidumbre siempre consiste en el precio que se da'; Mercado, Suma, lib. I, cap. VI, fo. 35: 'También esta razón es muy eficaz: el vender y comprar son actos de justicia conmutativa, virtud que consiste en guardar igualdad en los contratos, conviene a saber, que se dé tanto cuanto se recibe, no en substancia – que en esto muy desiguales naturalezas son en la compra –, sino en valor y precio'.
81 Molina, Opera omnia, vol. 2, disp. 347, no. 1, p. 227: 'Emptionem ac venditionem iustam, vel injustam esse, potissimum attenditur ex parte pretii'.
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