Johannes Voet
Of crucial importance, as far as continental Europe is concerned, was the recognition of the fact that the Roman system of noxal liability had become obsolete.[342] [343] [344] [345] In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries three approaches were competing as to how to fill that gap. 'Door de dienaers misdaed en werden de meesters ende vrouwen in't ghemeen niet verbonden dan zoo veel de onbetaelde huir maeg bedragen', we read in Grotius' Inleidiiig ™ the master is 'vicariously' liable, but only up to the amount of unpaid wages. This kind of wage liability appears to have had its origin in Saxonian law[346] and was accepted also by a number of other authors. Others, however, regarded liability of the master as appropriate only if some fault could be attributed to him. Johannes van der Linden advocated this view[347] and he was clearly influenced by Natural law thinking in this respect. And finally there was the view that ultimately won the day: liability of the master for all the wrongs committed by the people in his service, as far as these wrongs were committed in the course of their employment. Johannes Voet was the most influential proponent of this view,[348] and he developed it on the basis of certain traces of this regime in the Roman sources:[349] [350] [351] [352] [353] the liability of a person from whose dwelling something was thrown down or poured onto the street so as to injure another (actio de effusis vel deiectis),64 the liability of sea-carriers, innkeepers, and stable keepers for damage done by their employees to their customer's property (receptum nautarum, cauponum, stabulariorum and actio furti vel damni in factum adversus nautos, caupones, stabularios),65 and the liability of tax collectors (publicani) for wrongs committed by a member of their familia66 The idea of the functional limitation of the master's liability was derived from the actiones exercitoria and institoria where the master of a ship and the owner of a shop had been held liable for debts incurred by others within the terms of their praepositio67 3.
More on the topic Johannes Voet:
- Lord Holt
- The concept of iniuria
- The problem of the second chapter
- The Dutch Elegant Jurisprudence
- Condictio sine causa
- Vicarious liability in South African law
- 1. Mora creditoris, mora debitoris and breach of contract
- Towards security of tenure
- Index
- Federalism, Interdependence and Intergovernmental Coordination
- INTRODUCTION