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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §27.7.7.pr

Division of Action Against Sureties for Unrecoverable Balance

Passage 4049 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

If sureties requested a former ward to first sue his tutor and promised to pay only the unrecoverable balance, the action for the remaining amount should be divided among the solvent sureties, which is consistent with the equity observed in mandates.

[IDEM libro tertio responsorum. ] §27.7.7.prSi fideiussores, qui rem saluam fore pupillo cauerant, tutorem adulescens ut ante conueniret petierant atque ideo stipulanti promiserunt se reddituros quod ab eo seruari non potuisset: placuit inter eos, qui soluendo essent, actionem residui diuidi, quod onus fideiussorum susceptum uideretur: nam et si mandato plurium pecunia credatur, aeque diuiditur actio: si enim quod datum pro alio soluitur, cur species actionis aequitatem diuisionis excludit?
[THE SAME, in the third book of Opinions.] If the sureties, who had guaranteed that the property of the ward would be safe, had requested the young man to first sue the tutor, and therefore promised him when he stipulated that they would pay what could not be recovered from the tutor: it was held that the action for the remainder should be divided among those who were solvent, because this seemed to be the burden undertaken by the sureties. For even if money is lent on the mandate of several persons, the action is equally divided; for if what was given for another is paid, why does the specific form of action exclude the equity of division?

Notes

  1. §27.7.7.pradulescens — The verb petierant typically takes ab with the ablative to express the person requested, but here the noun adulescens appears in the nominative as the logical subject of the subsequent ut clause (ut ... conueniret).
  2. §27.7.7.prsoluendo essent — soluendo is the dative of the gerundive (or gerund), which, combined with the verb esse, forms a legal idiom meaning "to be solvent" (capable of paying).
  3. §27.7.7.prquod — quod is interpreted here not as a relative pronoun with onus as its antecedent, but as a causal conjunction meaning "because," explaining the ground for the decision (the division of the action) in the main clause.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §27.7.7.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:27.7.7.pr

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