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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §17.1.31.pr

Agent's Fourfold Liability and the Lapse of Time

Passage 2471 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

Julian explains that if a person who is liable to the mandator for a fourfold amount (which reduces to a single amount after a year) is commissioned to manage the mandator's affairs, that person remains obliged to pay the fourfold amount even if the action of mandate is brought after the year has elapsed.

[IDEM libro quarto decimo digestorum. ] §17.1.31.prSi negotia mea mandauero gerenda ei, qui mihi actione in quadruplum tenebatur, post annum uero in simplum, etsi post annum cum eo mandati agam, praestare mihi quadruplum debebit: nam qui alterius negotia administranda suscipit, id praestare debet in sua persona, quod in aliorum.
[THE SAME in the fourteenth book of his Digests.] If I commission someone to manage my affairs who was liable to me in an action for a fourfold amount, but after a year only for a single amount, then even if I bring an action of mandate against him after a year, he will be obliged to pay me the fourfold amount; for he who undertakes to manage the affairs of another must perform in his own person that which he must perform in the case of others.

Notes

  1. §17.1.31.prid praestare debet in sua persona, quod in aliorum — Meaning "he must perform in his own person that which he must perform in the case of others." When a mandatary manages another's affairs, just as he would be required to recover the fourfold amount within the one-year limit if the debtor were a third party, so too when he himself is the debtor, he must act to prevent the claim against himself from being depreciated. Failure to do so constitutes a breach of the mandate (negligence), making him liable for the full fourfold amount under the action of mandate (actio mandati).

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §17.1.31.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:17.1.31.pr

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