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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §50.17.77.pr

Conditions Added to Acts Not Admitting Them

Passage 9137 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

Discusses the impact of adding conditions or time limits to legal acts that do not normally admit them, explaining that while explicit addition invalidates the act, tacit inclusion of such conditions can be valid.

[IDEM libro uicensimo octauo quaestionum. ] §50.17.77.prActus legitimi, qui non recipiunt diem uel condicionem, ueluti emancipatio, acceptilatio, hereditatis aditio, serui optio, datio tutoris, in totum uitiantur per temporis uel condicionis adiectionem.
[THE SAME, from his twenty-eighth book of Questions.] Legal acts which do not admit of a time limit or a condition, such as emancipation, release by acceptilatio, entry on an inheritance, the option of a slave, or the appointment of a guardian, are entirely vitiated by the addition of a time limit or a condition.
nonnumquam tamen actus supra scripti tacite recipiunt, quae aperte comprehensa uitium adferunt.
Nevertheless, the above-mentioned acts sometimes tacitly admit what, if openly expressed, would bring about a defect.
nam si acceptum feratur ei, qui sub condicione promisit, ita demum egisse aliquid acceptilatio intellegitur, si obligationis condicio exstiterit: quae si uerbis nominatim acceptilationis comprehendatur, nullius momenti faciet actum.
For if a release is granted to one who has promised under a condition, the release is understood to have some effect only if the condition of the obligation has been fulfilled; but if this condition is expressly included in the words of the release, it will render the act of no effect.

Notes

  1. §50.17.77.prdiem — Rather than simply meaning "day," in legal terminology this refers to "a time limit" or "term" (dies) that determines when a legal act takes effect or expires.
  2. §50.17.77.prita demum... si... — A restrictive correlative construction meaning "only then... if..." or "only if...", indicating that the fulfillment of the conditional clause (si-clause) is an absolute requirement for the main clause to hold.
  3. §50.17.77.prquae si — A relative connection (connectio relativa), where the feminine singular nominative quae refers back to the preceding obligationis condicio and functions as the subject of the conditional clause introduced by si.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §50.17.77.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:50.17.77.pr

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