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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §46.3.96.pr-46.3.96.4

Payment on Tutor's Order, Allocation, and Mistaken Payment

Passage 7752 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

This chunk discusses the validity of payment and release under the tutor's delegation, transactions regarding a magistrate's liability and its non-ratification, the assumption of a claim in lieu of a legacy and its risk, the rules of allocating the price of joint or sequential pledges, and the retroactive validation of mistaken payment to a substitute heir once the inheritance devolves upon them.

[IDEM libro undecimo responsorum. ] §46.3.96.prPupilli debitor tutore delegante pecuniam creditori tutoris soluit: liberatio contigit, si non malo consilio cum tutore habito hoc factum esse probetur.
[THE SAME, in the eleventh book of Responses.] A debtor of a pupil, upon the delegation of the tutor, has paid money to the creditor of the tutor: release occurs, if it is not proved that this was done with a bad design formed with the tutor.
sed et interdicto fraudatorio tutoris creditor pupillo tenetur, si eum consilium fraudis participasse constabit.
But also, the creditor of the tutor is held liable to the pupil by the fraud interdict, if it shall be established that he participated in the design of fraud.
§46.3.96.1Cum pupilla magistratui, qui per fraudem pupillo tutorem dedit, heres extitisset, tutores eius cum adulescente transegerunt: eam transactionem pupilla ratam habere noluit: nihilo minus erit tutorum pecunia liberata nec tutores contra adulescentem actionem nec utilem habebunt, qui suum reciperauit.
When a female pupil had become the heir to a magistrate who, through fraud, had given a tutor to a male pupil, her tutors entered into a transaction with the youth (the former pupil): the female pupil refused to ratify that transaction: nevertheless, the tutors' money will be released, and the tutors will have neither a direct nor an equitable action against the youth, who recovered his own.
plane si adulescens pecuniam restituere tutori pupillae maluerit, rescisso quod gestum est actionem utilem in pupillam heredem magistratus accipiet.
Clearly, if the youth should prefer to restore the money to the tutor of the female pupil, the transaction being rescinded, he will receive an equitable action against the female pupil, who is the heir of the magistrate.
§46.3.96.2Soror, cui legatum ab herede fratre debebatur, post motam legati quaestionem transegit, ut nomine debitoris contenta legatum non peteret.
A sister, to whom a legacy was owed by her brother who was the heir, after a dispute was raised concerning the legacy, entered into a transaction to the effect that, being content with the claim (nomen) of a debtor, she would not sue for the legacy.
placuit, quamuis nulla delegatio facta neque liberatio secuta esset, tamen nominis periculum ad eam pertinere itaque, si legatum contra placitum peteret, exceptionem pacti non inutiliter opponi.
It was held that, although no delegation had been made and no release had followed, nevertheless the risk of the claim belonged to her, and therefore, if she should sue for the legacy contrary to the agreement, the exception of an agreement (exceptio pacti) would not uselessly be opposed to her.
§46.3.96.3Cum eodem tempore pignora duobus contractibus obligantur, pretium eorum pro modo pecuniae cuiusque contractus creditor accepto facere debet nec in arbitrio eius electio erit, cum debitor pretium pignoris consortioni subiecerit: quod si temporibus discretis superfluum pignorum obligari placuit, prius debitum pretio pignorum iure soluetur, secundum superfluo compensabitur.
When pledges are bound for two contracts at the same time, the creditor must credit their price in proportion to the amount of money of each contract, nor will the choice be at his discretion, since the debtor has subjected the price of the pledge to a community (consortium) between them. But if, at separate times, it was agreed that the surplus of the pledges should be bound, the prior debt will be paid by law out of the price of the pledges, and the second will be satisfied from the surplus.
§46.3.96.4Cum institutus deliberaret, substituto pecunia per errorem soluta est: ad eum hereditate postea deuoluta causa condictionis euanescit: quae ratio facit, ut obligatio debiti soluatur.
While the instituted heir was deliberating, money was paid by mistake to the substitute heir: since the inheritance subsequently devolved upon him, the ground for a condictio (claim for return) vanishes; which reason causes the obligation of the debt to be dissolved.

Notes

  1. 46.3.96.printerdicto fraudatorio — The phrase 'interdicto fraudatorio' refers to the fraud interdict. Here, it is used as a remedy for the pupil to recover assets when the tutor has fraudulently disposed of them, and the creditor of the tutor was complicit (participasse) in the fraud.
  2. 46.3.96.1erit tutorum pecunia liberata — Translated as 'the tutors' money will be released'. Even though the female pupil did not ratify the transaction, the release of the debt effected by the payment of the money remains valid, and the tutors cannot recover the money from the youth.
  3. 46.3.96.2nominis periculum — Refers to the risk (periculum) of the claim (nomen, literally 'name'), i.e., the risk of the debtor's insolvency making the claim uncollectible. It indicates that when a claim is accepted in a transaction, the risk transfers to the transferee (the sister).
  4. 46.3.96.3accepto facere — A technical term in Roman law meaning 'to enter as received' or to acknowledge payment. Here, it means that when the creditor receives the price of the pledges, he is obliged to credit or apply it to each debt in proportion to its amount.
  5. 46.3.96.4causa condictionis euanescit — Explains that although a claim for return (condictio) would normally lie for a mistaken payment (solutio indebiti), the subsequent devolution of the inheritance upon the substitute heir retroactively validates the payment, causing the legal ground (causa) for recovery to vanish (euanescit).

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §46.3.96.pr-46.3.96.4. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:46.3.96.pr-46.3.96.4

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