Mandatum morte solvitur
Mandatum was based on personal confidence, on fides and amicitia.[2153] Any breach of trust on the part of the mandatarius was seen in a most serious light and condemnation under the actio mandati therefore involved infamia.[2154] Furthermore, the mandate ended with the death of either of the parties: mandatum morte solvitur.[2155]-y" Mandator and mandatarius had placed their confidence in each other, not in each other's heirs.
With the person of either of them, the essential basis of their contractual relationship falls away too. However, there were certain modifications to this rule. It applied "integro mandato" only, that is, before the mandate had been acted upon.[2156] [2157] If the mandate was "under way",[2158] i.e. if the mandatary had started to carry out the commission but had not yet completed it, it had to be carried out, irrespective of whether the mandator or the mandatarius had died over it. The practical effects of the principle of mandatum morte solvitur were also mitigated in instances where a mandatarius had executed the mandate in the belief that the mandator was still alive. Legal protection for such bona fide acts post finem mandati was accomplished by means of actiones utiles.[2159]A different, though closely related, question is whether the parties to a mandate could specifically arrange that it be carried out after the death of either of them. Justinian, while retaining the rule that a mandate was dissolved by death, allowed the conclusion of such mandata post mortem.[2160] In this respect he deviated from the position adopted by the classical lawyers, who had disapproved of both mandata post mortem mandatarii and niandatoris as being in conflict with the personal nature of mandatum.[2161] More particularly, the latter (example: "si, ut post mortem sibi monumentum fieret, quis mandavit")96 would have run counter to the idea that the heirs of the mandator should be free to chose a person of their confidence; the mandatum post mortem mandatarii, on the other hand, is inutile97 (in the sense of useless, impractical and therefore invalid),98 in that a mandator could not conceivably have a reasonable interest in commissioning, of all people, the heirs of a particular person: they are, after all, not even known yet!
5.
More on the topic Mandatum morte solvitur:
- Mandatum
- Mandate (mandatum)
- The range of application of mandatum
- The gratuitousness of mandatum
- The use of manda turn, especially the mandatum qualificatum
- Mandatum
- Negotiorum gestio and mandatum
- The essential characteristics of mandatum
- Mandatum (Mandate, Commission or Agency)
- The standard of liability of the gestor
- Loans to sons in power
- Further Modes by Which Obligations Were Extinguished
- Libro XI [Sulle reintegrazioni (E. X)]
- 4. DISCHARGE OF OBLIGATIONS