Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §22.3.20.pr

Abduction of a Free Person and Possessor's Advantage

Passage 3238 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

This section explains the legal principle preventing a possessor who forcibly abducts and imprisons a free person from unjustly gaining an advantage due to the difficulty of proving that person's freedom at the start of the lawsuit.

[IULIANUS libro quadragesimo tertio digestorum. ] §22.3.20.prSi quis liberum hominem ui rapuerit, in uinculis habuerit, in indignissime commodum possessoris consequeretur, quia probari non poterit hominem eo tempore quo primum lis ordinaretur in libertate fuisse.

[JULIANUS, in the forty-third book of the Digests.] If anyone should forcibly abduct a free person and keep him in chains, this would, most unjustly, result in an advantage for the possessor, because it will not be possible to prove that the person was free at the time when the lawsuit was first formulated.

Notes

§22.3.20.prin indignissime — The phrase in indignissime in the manuscripts is commonly read as a corruption of id indignissime. Here, id is a neuter singular nominative referring back to the conditional clause (the abduction and imprisonment), serving as the subject of consequeretur, while commodum functions as its object ('this would, most unjustly, result in an advantage for the possessor').
§22.3.20.prquo primum lis ordinaretur — The relative quo functions with the omission of its antecedent tempore. The imperfect subjunctive passive ordinaretur describes the formal stage of the joinder of issue (litis contestatio) within a past hypothetical context, harmonizing with the potential subjunctive of the main verb consequeretur.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §22.3.20.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:22.3.20.pr

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