Law Commons^™

Agency Problems And Organizational Costs In Slave-Run Business, Barbara Abatino, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines the internal economic organization of the peculium servi communis — that is, of separate business assets assigned to a slave — and its (external) relationships with creditors. Literary, legal, and epigraphic evidence points predominantly to businesses of small or medium size, suggesting that there must have been some constraints to growth. We identify both agency problems arising within the business organization (governance problems) and agency problems arising between the business organization and its creditors (limited access to credit). We suggest that, although the praetorian remedies had a remarkable mitigating effect, agency problems operated as a constraint to …

The Dual Origin Of The Duty To Disclose In Roman Law, Barbara Abatino, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci

Faculty Scholarship

The Roman law remedies for failure to disclose in sales contracts were developed by two different institutions: that of the aediles, with jurisdiction on market transactions effected through auctions, and that of the praetor, with general jurisdiction including private transactions. The aedilician remedies — the actiones redhibitoria and quanti minoris — allowed for rapid transactions and inexpensive litigation but generated some allocative losses ex post, as they did not incentivize the parties to exchange information about idiosyncratic characteristics of the goods for sale. In contrast, the remedy developed by the praetor — the actio ex empto — implied …

The Riccobono Seminar Of Roman Law In America: The Lost Years, Timothy G. Kearley

Timothy G. Kearley

From Rome To The Restatement: S.P. Scott, Fred Blume, Clyde Pharr, And Roman Law In Early Twentieth Century America, Timothy G. Kearley

Timothy G. Kearley

An Outline Of Roman Civil Procedure, Ernest Metzger

Ernest Metzger

This is a broad discussion of the key feature of Roman civil procedure, including sources, lawmaking, and rules. It covers the three principal models for procedure; special proceedings; appeals; magistrates; judges; and representation. It takes account of new evidence on procedure discovered in the last century, and introduces some of the newer arguments on familiar but controversial topics. Citations to the literature allow further study.

Agree To Disagree: Local Jurisdiction In The Lex Irnitana, Ernest Metzger

Ernest Metzger

The lex Irnitana (AD 91) is one of our principal sources for Roman civil procedure during the classical period. In character it is a municipal charter for a muncipium in Baetica. It contains extensive provisions on the conduct of civil lawsuits, and among its most contested provisions is Chapter 84 on jurisdiction. The main point of disagreement: was it possible only to have 'small lawsuits' heard locally, or might the parties, by agreement, consent to have lawsuits of substantial value heard also? The disagreement is of much greater significance than this single inscription might suggest: Roman civil procedure underwent revolutionary …

Lawsuits In Context, Ernest Metzger

Ernest Metzger

The study of Roman procedure has benefited enormously from the discovery of wooden tablets near Pompeii. Unfortunately, the tablets are sometimes misinterpreted, for the simple reason that the procedures they describe do not always match the procedures which more familiar sources have led us to believe existed. The tablets, in fact, give us the rare opportunity to revise our understanding of procedure, particularly when taken together with another remarkable find, the lex Irnitana. This article gives a sketch of the ‘new’ Roman civil procedure now available to us as a result of these exciting finds.

In: J. W. Cairns and …

Roman Judges, Case Law, And Principles Of Procedure, Ernest Metzger

Ernest Metzger

Roman law has been admired for a long time. Its admirers, in their enthusiasm, have sometimes borrowed ideas from their own time and attributed them to the Romans, thereby filling some gap or fixing some anomaly. Roman private law is a well known victim of this. Roman civil procedure has been a victim as well, and the way Roman judges are treated in the older literature provides an example. For a long time it has been accepted, and rightly so, that the decision of a Roman judge did not make law. But the related, empirical question, whether Roman judges ever …

Book Review. Roman Law After The Fall Of Rome, David V. Snyder

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Review of: Stein, Peter, Roman Law in European History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.