The admissibility of resolutive conditions
It is no mere accident that all the sources just referred to deal with emptio venditio. Sale was a bonae fidei contract, and it was the "ex bona fide" clause contained in the formulae of the actiones venditi and empti that enabled the Roman lawyers to take account of all informal arrangements between the parties when it came to determining whether either of the actions could be brought.
If, therefore, the parties had arranged that their contract should be dissolved upon the occurrence, or non-occurrence, of an uncertain future event, what could have been more in accordance with good faith than to give effect to this arrangement? The same considerations, of course, applied with regard to the other consensual contracts. They did not, however, apply to stipulations. Here the rigid formula of the condictio did not enable judges to pay attention to informal dissolution pacta, and a resolutive condition contained in the wording of the stipulation itself was, iure civili, simply ignored.[3743] A stipulation for one hundred "nisi navis ex Asia venerit"[3744] 4 was therefore regarded as an absolute promise. Praetorian intervention, however, ensured that the clause at least had some effect; for if the stipulator sued for the promised sum after the ship had arrived from Asia, his claim could be barred by either the exceptio doli or the exceptio pacti.[3745] [3746] Absolute legal rights and positions such as ownership, freedom or patria potestas could not be conferred or granted for some time only;115 if they were subjected to a resolutive condition, the whole transaction was thus, apparently, invalid.[3747] Actus legitimi,[3748] too, could no more be resolved than brought about sub condicione.3.
More on the topic The admissibility of resolutive conditions:
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- RESOLUTIVE CONDITIONS
- Most of our texts by far, concerning resolutive conditions, deal with three specific clauses, frequently appended, by way of pacta ex continent! adiecta,129 to contracts of sale.
- Conditions and Terms in Contracts
- Positive and negative conditions
- Interpretation of conditions
- Conditions in general
- Economic conditions
- Living conditions in Rome
- Impossible, illegal and immoral conditions
- Economic Conditions
- Economic conditions
- Economic conditions
- Conditions contra bonos mores and late classical jurisprudence
- 1. The nature of suspensive conditions
- Social and Economic Conditions
- Social and Economic Conditions
- lang=EN-US>Social and Economic Conditions
- From the eleventh century, the improved political and economic conditions created a more favourable environment for cultural development in medieval Europe.