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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §30.1.38.pr-30.1.38.1

Division of Acceptance and Rejection of Legacies

Passage 4634 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

This text explains that while a legatee cannot partially acquire or reject a legacy, their heirs are permitted to do so individually, and that rejecting a legacy treats it as non-existent, thereby preventing the extinction of servitudes and preserving actions for theft.

[POMPONIUS libro sexto ad Sabinum. ] §30.1.38.prLegatarius pro parte adquirere, pro parte repudiare legatum non potest: heredes eius possunt, ut alter eorum partem suam adquirat, alter repudiet.
[POMPONIUS, Book 6 on Sabinus.] A legatee cannot acquire a legacy in part and reject it in part; but his heirs can, so that one of them may acquire his own share and another reject it.
§30.1.38.1Si legatum nobis relictum constituerimus nolle ad nos pertinere, pro eo erit, quasi nec legatum quidem sit: et ideo dicimus nec confusas seruitutes, si forte praedium mihi legatum praedio meo debuerit seruitutes, et integra furti actio manebit, si seruus legatus sit ei, cuius nomine furti agere poterit legatarius.
If we decide that we do not wish a legacy left to us to belong to us, it will be just as if there had not even been any legacy at all; and therefore we say that servitudes are not extinguished by confusion, if by chance an estate bequeathed to me owed servitudes to my own estate; and an action for theft will remain unimpaired, if a slave is bequeathed to someone on whose account the legatee could have brought an action for theft.

Notes

  1. 30.1.38.prut alter eorum partem suam adquirat, alter repudiet — The clause introduced by the conjunction `ut` functions as a noun clause (or clause of result) explaining the specific power of the heirs implied by the main verb `possunt`. The correlative expression `alter... alter...` means "one... the other...", indicating that multiple heirs can make independent decisions regarding their respective shares.
  2. 30.1.38.1nec confusas seruitutes — This is an accusative with infinitive construction governed by the main verb `dicimus`, with the infinitive `esse` omitted after the perfect participle `confusas` (i.e., `confusas [esse]`), where `seruitutes` is the subject accusative. In contrast, the subsequent clause `et integra furti actio manebit` contains the verb `manebit` in the future indicative, functioning as an independent main clause coordinated alongside, rather than under the governance of, `dicimus`.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §30.1.38.pr-30.1.38.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:30.1.38.pr-30.1.38.1

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