Page 97 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

EARLY MODERN CASTILIAN LAW
early modern Castilian scholars distinguish between the forum internum and externum. In the forum internum an unknowing seller who sells for more than the just price, is liable to make restitution, even when the excess of the price does not amount to more than half the just price.82 Contrariwise, in the forum externum, if the prejudice does not amount to more than half of the thing's just price, fraud (dolus ex proposito) is required in order to be able to hold one liable for a deviation of the just price.83 According to Molina, in the forum externum, fraud is even a prerequisite for any legal remedy. The remedy which is granted for a deviation of more or less than half the thing's just price is the only exception to that principle.84 Molina here seems to ignore the existence of the Roman law remedies for defects in the aedilician edict. These could be brought irrespective of whether the seller had acted fraudulently.
3.2.2.3 A just price
Seeing that the just price is the key to the answer whether a contract is just or not, the next logical step for early modern scholastics to take was to explore what exactly is meant by the just price for a thing. To answer this question they again hark back to Aquinas' teachings. As already observed, Aquinas noted that equality in exchange found its expression in the just price.85 He furthermore emphasised that the just price escapes exact determination and can therefore only be approximated. This leaves a certain latitude ranging from the thing's lowest (or 'pious') to its highest (or 'rigorous') just price. For example, a thing's pious price can be 95, its medium price 100 and it rigorous price 105. The early modern Castilian scholars Bartolomé Frías de Albornoz (c. 1525-?)86, Covarrubias, Pedro de Oñate (1568-1646)87, Molina and Juan de Hevia Bolaño (c. 1570- Lima, c. 1623), a scholar who worked in the new world88, adopt Aquinas' views.89
82 Most clear of all and with sundry references Covarrubias, Resolutiones, vol. 2, 2.4, no. 11, fo. 56v: 'Ergo cum laesio etiam citra dimidiam licita non sit humana lege, naturali et divina maxime improbata, peccat atque ad restitutionem tenetur is, qui contrahendo notabiliter proximum laedit, etiam intra iusti precii dimidiam...'. Covarrubias among others refers to Medina, Azpilcueta, Gómez and Soto.
83 Covarrubias, Resolutiones, vol. 2, 2.4, no. 11, fo. 57: 'Omnes tamen conveniunt, etiam in foro exteriori contractum esse rescindendum, vel laesionem tollendam, ubi dolo laedentis, aut decipientis etiam intra dimidiam contigerit, dolo, inquam, ut aiunt ex proposito...'.
84 Molina, Opera omnia, vol. 2, disp. 350, no. 1, p. 235: '...cuando dolus in contractu non intervenerit in exteriori foro tam seculari, quam eclesiastico, non dari actionem,... quae solum illam concedunt, quando laesio est ultra, aut infra, dimidium iusti pretii'.
85 Aquinas, Summa Theol., vol. 9, IIaIIae, q. 77, a.1, ad. pr.: 'Quod ideo dico quia iustum pretium rerum quandoque non est punct\[u?\]aliter determinatum, sed magis in quadam aestimatione consistit, ita quod modica additio vel minutio non videtur tollere aequalitatem iustitiae’.
86 For biographical details see J. M. García Añoveros, 'Frías de Albornoz, Bartolomé', in: DBE, vol. 20, p. 693: A contemporary noted about Albornoz: 'según noticias fidedignas que Frías de Albornoz era peritísimo en latín y griego, doctísimo jurisperito, gran erudito que gozaba de prodigiosa memoria, persona de amplísimos conocimientos y de que monstraba gran consideración de sí mismo'.
87 For biographical details see Decock, Theologians, p. 67 (with further references).
88 For biographical details see M. Luque Talabán, 'Hevia Bolaño, Juan de', in: DBE, vol. 26, p. 216-217.
89 Albornoz, Arte, fo. 54v: 'El pio llaman quando notoriamente se da barato, como si valiendo el pan a X, lo
diessen a IX. El justo sería darlo a X y el rigoroso a XI'; Covarrubias y Leyva, Opera omnia, vol. 2, 2.3, no. 1, fo. 52v; Oñate, De contractibus, vol. 3, tract. 21, disp. 63.1, nos. 13seq., p. 36; Molina, De iustitia, vol. 2, disp. 348, no. 4, p. 227; Hevia Bolaños, Laberinto, cap. 12, nu. 28, p. 129: 'y asi el justo precio de las mercaderias es en dos maneras, uno legitimo y otro natural. Legitimo es el que por ley...es
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