Roman Law
It is AD 212. You are a jurist consulting in Rome. Crassus, a senator and wealthy landowner, tells you the following story:A few months ago I came down with a debilitating fever. My doctor Medicus, whom I now know for a thorough villain, told me I was suffering from nervous exhaustion caused by my owning too much property. He said it would assist my recovery if I made over to him a large portion of my property. I accordingly mancipated to Medicus four of my estates. Medicus proceeded to mancipate one estate to his wife and another to his elder son. The third estate he handed over to his younger son but without formal conveyance and the fourth he kept. Another doctor has now cured me of the fever. I want to know what I can do about recovering my estates.It is important in this situation to look at the legal effects of Crassus mancipating four of his estates to Medicus. In the mancipation of res mancipi, ownership was transferred unconditionally (except that the transferor could reserve a servitude over the property) and immediately, and it could not be postponed to take effect at some future time. Provided that the mancipatio was correctly performed, the conveyance could not be impugned on grounds
Therefore it would seem that, even though the condictio is not available, it is possible to use a remedy for theft. It states in the passage that he transferred this estate to his younger son without formal conveyance. So Crassus requires other possible methods of recovering his estates from these people. This occurrence would mean that the estate would be affected by the actio doli brought against Medicus by Crassus, should Crassus be successful. However, the passage does state that this occurred in AD 212, and free marriage became the norm from the late Republic onwards. It seems from the information that this is a deceitful act, and thus it can be concluded that it was a fraudulent act from Medicus. If Medicus and his wife shared a free marriage then it is difficult to see how Crassus could recover that estate. Consequently it is plausible to assume that legally the estate still belongs to Medicus, as no formal ceremony of mancipation took place between Medicus and his son. The legal consequences of a free marriage are that the wife retains the property she owned before the marriage, and that she could keep any property that she acquired during the marriage. The action was mostly brought as a last resort. So in this case, the actio doli would affect this estate as well, as the legal owner would be Medicus. This is because the legal implications for the wife in a manus marriage are that she could not own her property, and anything she acquired during marriage passed to the husband. However, it is feasible that the son is still under patriapotestas, and that technically the owner of his belongings is the paterfamilias. A more difficult situation is that of the estate that Medicus mancipated to his elder son. A suitable remedy would be the actio doli, which was an action for simple damages, and had to be brought within a year of the offence.
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Acceptance Essays
