The Common Law Part 20

/5/ The cestui que use was given power to sell by an early statute. /6/ But with regard to trusts, Lord c.o.ke tells us that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth [409] all the judges in England held that a trust could not be a.s.signed, "because it was a matter in privity between them, and was in the nature of a chose in action." /1/ Uses and trusts were both devisable, however, from an early day, /2/ and now trusts are as alienable as any form of property.

The history of early law everywhere shows that the difficulty of transferring a mere right was greatly felt when the situation of fact from which it sprung could not also be transferred. a.n.a.lysis shows that the difficulty is real. The fiction which made such a transfer conceivable has now been explained, and its history has been followed until it has been seen to become a general mode of thought. It is now a matter of course that the buyer stands in the shoes of the seller, or, in the language of an old law-book, /3/ that "the a.s.sign is in a manner quasi successor to his a.s.signor." Whatever peculiarities of our law rest on that a.s.sumption may now be understood.

FOOTNOTES

3/1 E.g. Ine, c. 74; Alfred, c. 42; Ethelred, IV. 4, Section 1.

3/2 Bract., fol. 144, 145; Fleta, I. c. 40, 41; Co. Lit. 126b; Hawkins, P.C., Bk. 2, ch. 23, Section 15.

3/3 Lib. I. c. 2, ad fin.

3 /4 Bract., fol. 144a, "a.s.sulto praemeditato."

4/1 Fol. 155; cf. 103b.

4/2 Y.B. 6 Ed. IV. 7, pl. 18.

4/3 Ibid., and 21 H. VII. 27, pl. 5.

4/4 D. 47. 9. 9.

7/1 xxi. 28.

7/2 [theta], ix. Jowett's Tr., Bk. IX. p. 437; Bohn's Tr., pp.

378, 379.

7/3 [theta], xv., Jowett, 449; Bohn, 397.

8/1 [iota alpha], xiv., Jowett, 509; Bohn, 495.

8/2 [theta], xii., Jowett, 443, 444; Bohn, 388.

8/3 [Greek words]. 244, 245.

8/4 l. 28 (11).

8/5 Solon.

8/6 "Si quadrupes pauperiem fecisse dicetur actio ex lege duodecim tabularum descendit; quae lex voluit, aut dari [id] quod nocuit, id ist, id animal, quod noxiam commisit; aut estimationem noxiae offerre." D. 9. 1. 1, pr.; Just. Inst. 4. 9; XII Tab., VIII. 6.

8/7 Gaii Inst. IV. Sections 75, 76; D. 9. 4. 2, Section 1. "Si servus furtum faxit noxiam ve noxit." XII Tab., XII.2. Cf.

Just. Inst. 4.8, Section 7.

9/1 D. 39. 2. 7, Sections 1, 2; Gaii Inst. IV. Section 75.

9/2 "Noxa caput sequitur." D. 9. 1. 1, Section 12; Inst. 4.8, Section 5.

9/3 "Quia desinit dominus esse ubi fera evasit." D. 9. 1. 1, Section 10; Inst. 4. 9, pr. Compare May v. Burdett, 9 Q.B.101, 113.

10/1 D. 19. 5. 14, Section 3; Plin. Nat. Hist., XVIII. 3.

10/2 "In lege antiqua si servus sciente domino furtum fecit, vel aliam noxiam commisit, servi nomine actio est noxalis, nec dominus suo nomine tenetur." D. 9. 4. 2.

10/3 Gaius, Inst. IV. Section 77, says that a noxal action may change to a direct, and conversely, a direct action to a noxal. If a paterfamilias commits a tort, and then is adopted or becomes a slave, a noxal action now lies against his master in place of the direct one against himself as the wrong-doer. Just. Inst. 4. 8, Section 5.

11/1 LL. Alfred, c. 13; 1 Tylor, Primitive Culture, Am. ed., p.

285 et seq.; Bain, Mental and Moral Science, Bk. III. ch. 8, p.

261.

11/2 Florus, Epitome, II. 18. Cf. Livy, IX 1, 8, VIII. 39; Zonaras, VII. 26, ed. Niebuhr, vol. 43, pp. 98, 99.

12/1 Gaii Inst. IV. Section 81. I give the reading of Huschke: "Licere enim etiam, si fato is fuerit mortuus, mortuum dare; nam quamquam diximus, non etiam permissum reis esse, et mortuos homines dedere, tamen et si quis eum dederit, qui fato suo vita excesserit, aeque liberatur." Ulpian's statement, in D. 9. 1. 1, Section 13, that the action is gone if the animal dies ante litem contestatam, is directed only to the point that liability is founded on possession of the thing.

12/2 "Bello contra foedus suscepto."

12/3 Livy, VIII. 39: "Vir...haud dubie proximarum induciarum ruptor. De eo coacti referre praetores decretum fecerunt 'Ut Brutulus Papius Romanis dederetur."...Fetiales Romam, ut censuerunt, missi, et corpus Brutuli exanime: ipse morte voluntaria ignominiae se ac supplicio subtraxit. Placuit c.u.m corpore bona quoque ejus dedi." Cf. Zonaras, VII. 26, ed.

Niebuhr, vol. 43, p. 97: [Greek characters]. See further Livy, V.

36, "postulatumque ut pro jure gentium violato Fabii dederentur,"

and Ib. I. 32.

13/1 Livy, IX. 5, 8, 9, 10. "Nam quod deditione nostra negant exsolvi religione populum, id istos magis ne dedantur, quam quia ita se res habeat, dicere, quis adeo juris fetialium expers est, qui ignoret?" The formula of surrender was as follows: "Quandoque hisce homines injussu populi Romani Quiritium foedus ictum iri spoponderunt, atque ob eam rem noxam nocuerunt; ob eam rem, quo populus Roma.n.u.s scelere impio sit solutus, hosce homines vobis dedo." Cf. Zonaras, VII. 26, ed. Niebuhr, vol. 43, pp. 98, 99.

13/2 De Orator. I. 40, and elsewhere. It is to be noticed that Florus, in his account, says deditione Mancini expiavit. Epitome, II. 18. It has already been observed that the cases mentioned by Livy seem to suggest that the object of the surrender was expiation, as much as they do that it was satisfaction of a contract. Zonaras says, Postumius and Calvinus [Greek characters]. (VII. 26, ed. Niebuhr, Vol. 43, pp. 98, 99.) Cf. ib.

p. 97. Compare Serv. ad Virg. Eclog. IV. 43: "In legibus Numae cautum est, ut si quis imprudens occidisset hominem pro capite occisi et natis [agnatis? Huschke] ejus in concione offerret arietem." Id. Geor. III. 387, and Festus, Subici, Subigere. But cf. Wordsworth's Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin, note to XII Tab., XII. 2, p. 538.

14/1 D. 9. 4. 2

14/2 2 Tissot, Droit Penal, 615; 1 Ihering, Geist d. Roem. R., Section 14; 4 id. Section 63.

14/3 Aul. Gell. Noctes Attici, 20. 1; Quintil. Inst. Orat. 3. 6.

84; Tertull. Apol., c. 4.

14/4 Cf. Varro, De Lingua Latina, VI.: "Liber, qui suas operas in servitute pro pecunia, quam debeat, dum solveret Nexus vocatur."

15/1 D. 9. 1. 1, Section 9 But cf. 1 Hale, P.C. 420.

15/2 D. 9. 4. 2, Section 1.

15/3 D. 9. 1. 1, Sections 4, 5.

16/1 D. 4. 9. 1, Section 1; ib. 7, Section 4.

16/2 Gaius in D. 44. 7. 5, Section 6; Just. Inst. 4. 5, Section 3.

16/3 D. 4. 9. 7, pr.