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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §50.16.14.pr-50.16.14.1

Absence through Ruined Form and Definition of Loss

Passage 8828 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

Paulus discusses why a thing returned in a ruined shape or a stolen thing unwittingly bought back by its owner is legally deemed 'absent', and defines 'losing a thing' as having no action against anyone for its recovery.

[PAULUS libro septimo ad edictum. ] §50.16.14.prLabeo et Sabinus existimant, si uestimentum scissum reddatur uel res corrupta reddita sit, ueluti scyphi collisi aut tabula rasa pictura, uideri rem 'abesse', quoniam earum rerum pretium non in substantia, sed in arte sit positum.
[PAULUS, in the seventh book on the Edict.] Labeo and Sabinus think that if a garment is returned torn or a thing is returned damaged, as for instance crushed cups or a tablet with its painting scraped off, the thing is deemed to be 'absent', because the value of those things lies not in the material, but in the art.
item si dominus rem, quae furto sibi aberat, ignorans emerit, recte dicitur res abesse, etiamsi postea id ita esse scierit, quia uidetur res ei abesse, cui pretium abest.
Likewise, if an owner, without knowing it, buys a thing which had been missing from him by theft, the thing is correctly said to be absent, even if he afterwards knows that this is so, because a thing is deemed to be absent to him from whom its price is absent.
' §50.16.14.1Rem amisisse' uidetur, qui aduersus nullum eius persequendae actionem habet.
A person is deemed to 'have lost a thing' who has no action against anyone for its recovery.

Notes

  1. §50.16.14.prtabula rasa pictura — rasa is the perfect passive participle (feminine nominative singular) of radere (to scrape), modifying tabula (tablet), and pictura (painting) is an ablative of specification or means. The phrase literally means "a tablet scraped of its painting."
  2. §50.16.14.prei... cui pretium abest — A correlation between the dative demonstrative pronoun ei and the relative clause introduced by cui. It explains the legal reasoning that an owner who unwittingly buys back his own stolen property has lost its price (pretium abest), and therefore the thing itself is still deemed "absent" to him despite its physical return.
  3. §50.16.14.1eius persequendae actionem — A gerundive construction consisting of eius (feminine genitive singular, referring to the preceding res) and persequendae (gerundive, feminine genitive singular) modifying actionem (noun, accusative), meaning "an action for recovering (pursuing) it."

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §50.16.14.pr-50.16.14.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:50.16.14.pr-50.16.14.1

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