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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §7.4.17.pr

Conditional Bequest of Ownership and Extinction of Usufruct

Passage 1275 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

This section explains that when a usufruct is unconditionally bequeathed to one person and the ownership is conditionally bequeathed to another, if the first person acquires the ownership before the condition is fulfilled, the other person will eventually obtain full ownership of the land upon the fulfillment of the condition.

[IULIANUS libro tricensimo quinto digestorum. ] §7.4.17.prSi tibi fundi usus fructus pure, proprietatem autem sub condicione Titio legata fuerit, pendente condicione dominium proprietatis adquisieris, deinde condicio extiterit, pleno iure fundum Titius habebit neque interest, quod detracto usu fructu proprietas legata sit: enim dum proprietatem adquiris, ius omne legati usus fructus amisisti.
[JULIANUS in the thirty-fifth book of the Digests.] If the usufruct of a tract of land is bequeathed to you unconditionally, but the ownership is bequeathed to Titius under a condition, and while the condition is pending you acquire the domain of the ownership, and then the condition is fulfilled, Titius will hold the land with full right; and it makes no difference that the ownership was bequeathed with the usufruct deducted: for while you acquire the ownership, you have lost all right of the bequeathed usufruct.

Notes

  1. §7.4.17.prproprietatem — Although the accusative proprietatem appears in the manuscripts, it functions as the subject of the feminine singular verb legata fuerit. It is standard to interpret it as if it were the nominative proprietas ("ownership").
  2. §7.4.17.prdetracto usu fructu — An ablative absolute construction consisting of the ablative noun usu fructu and the perfect participle detracto, meaning "with the usufruct deducted" or "excluding the usufruct."
  3. §7.4.17.prdum proprietatem adquiris, ... amisisti — The conjunction dum ("while") takes the present tense verb adquiris, combined with the perfect tense amisisti in the main clause. This is a standard Latin construction indicating that at the very moment of acquiring the ownership, the right to the usufruct was already lost.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §7.4.17.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:7.4.17.pr

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