1. Damage to property
We have been dealing in the previous pages with a range of issues in respect of which the original scope of the lex Aquilia came to be gradually extended. "Urere frangere rumpere" was superseded by the all-embracing term "corrumpere";[5271] remedies were granted in cases of indirect causation[5272] and even in situations where the substance of the object concerned was not at all affected;[5273] fault in the broadest sense of the word became a sufficient basis for liability;[5274]" the injured party could recover his full quod interest;[5275] and the role of plaintiff was no longer confined to the owner of the object killed or damaged.[5276] All this had been achieved by Republican and classical jurisprudence.
But by the end of classical law one further, very significant development had taken place. Essentially, the lex Aquilia was intended to deal with damage to property: slaves, grazing animals, res se moventes other than grazing animals, and inanimate objects,[5277] Damage to freemen was not covered by its provisions: "Liber homo... enim [Aquiliae] non habet [actionem], quoniam dominus membrorum suorum nemo videtur."[5278] If a slave lost his limb, his owner's property was damaged; but if the same thing happened to a freeman, nobody's property had been interfered with: the limb can hardly be said to "belong" to the person whose body it makes up. In the case of the lex Aquilia it was the erus (dominus) who was entitled to sue;[5279] and even if Aquilian protection was extended to certain non-owners,[5280] the fact remained that the lex drew a distinction between the object damaged and the person who could bring the action. But was this not a strange result? Generous protection was provided with regard to damage to property—but when it came to personal injuries we find only a somewhat patchy assortment of remedies: the actio iniuriarum dealt with situations that were typically characterized by the presence of dolus,[5281] and the actiones de effusis vel deiectis, de pauperie and de feris pertained to very special situations.1062.
More on the topic 1. Damage to property:
- Wrongful damage to property
- The Roman law of things (ius rerum) or, in contemporary terms, ‘property’, covered a muchbroader field than that encompassed by the modern law of property.
- Liability for damage caused by animals
- 2. Liability for damage done by animals
- I. LIABILITY FOR DAMAGE DONE BY ANIMALS
- Liability for damage done by animals in modern German law
- CHAPTER V PROPERTY
- The classification of property
- Property
- 3.3 The Law of Property
- 6 Interests in Property
- Property law
- Restitution for Improvements Made on Another Person's Property
- Ill LAW OF PROPERTY
- Execution of Charged Property
- Chapter 3 The Law of Property
- RUTA CAESA (SELLER'S PROPERTY)
- PART III The Law of Property and Inheritance