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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §32.0.28.pr

Capacity to Receive Excess Legacies Subject to Restitution

Passage 4849 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

It is explained that if a beneficiary is under a trust to restore to a third party what has been bequeathed to them beyond their legal capacity to take, they are nevertheless deemed capable of receiving it.

[IDEM libro singulari ad senatus consultum Tertullianum. ] §32.0.28.prSi fidei meae committatur, ut, quod mihi relictum fuerit supra quod capere possum, alii restituam, posse me id capere constat.
[THE SAME, in his single book on the Senatus Consultum Tertullianum.] If it should be entrusted to my good faith that I restore to another what has been left to me beyond what I am capable of receiving, it is certain that I can receive it.

Notes

  1. 32.0.28.prfidei meae committatur, ut — The idiom fidei committere means "to entrust to someone's good faith." Here, the subjunctive clause ut... restituam (that I restore) acts as the subject clause of the passive verb committatur.
  2. 32.0.28.prcapere — Used in the technical legal sense of "to have the capacity to take or receive" under a testament. The phrase supra quod capere possum stands for supra id quod capere possum, with the antecedent id omitted.
  3. 32.0.28.prposse me id capere constat — The impersonal verb constat (it is established/certain) takes the accusative and infinitive clause posse me id capere (that I can receive it) as its subject. The pronoun id refers back to the excess portion mentioned in the relative clause.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §32.0.28.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:32.0.28.pr

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