libertum qui eum contra edictum praetoris in jus vocavit, § 51. sunt. 852. The System of Actions. I. Actiones in personam and Actiones in rem. Every intentio is so framed as to be either personal (in personam) or impersonal (in rem). An intentio in personam names the person of the defendant (who is to be condemned on certain conditions), an intentio in rem does not name the person of the defendant, but only the person of the plaintiff, in other words, the person who claims the right. Upon this antithesis is based the supreme division of all actions into actiones in personam, where the intentio is in personam, and actiones in rem, where the intentio is in rem. The antithesis is not merely an external one, but is grounded on a fundamental difference in the nature of private rights themselves. The rights we have called 'obligatory rights,' which form one class of private rights, are co-extensive with the liability of a single $ 52. § 52. person, viz. the debtor, and it is impossible to specify the particular obligatory right which is meant without, at the same time, naming Thus the nature of the intentio determines the nature of the actio. An action arising from an obligatory right is an actio in personam, an action arising from any other right (ownership, right of pledge, paternal power, right of succession, &c.) is an actio in rem. Or, to put it in terms of private law: an obligatory right is a right the content of which is relative as against a definite person, the remaining rights are rights the contents of which are absolute. II. Actiones in rem. Real actions (actiones in rem) arise either from real rights (infra, § 60 ff.), such as ownership (rei vindicatio, actio negatoria), or from family rights, such as the power of the paterfamilias over his children (vindicatio filii in potestatem), or from rights of succession (hereditatis petitio, interdictum quorum bonorum), or from rights of 'status,' § 52. i.e. rights to a recognition of one's personal standing (e. g. of one's ingenuitas, parentage, freedom from patria potestas). The actions on questions of status belong to the class known as 'praejudicia,' i. e. to those actions of Roman law the object of which was to obtain, not the condemnation of the defendant, but merely a judicial acknowledgment of a legal relation, such as liberty1. The so-called 'actio in rem scripta' is not an actio in rem, but an actio in personam, springing from an obligation and available, therefore, against an existing defendant, but with this peculiarity that the debtor is not specifically determined, but is only characterized by a general description to which different persons may answer at different times. It is therefore an actio in personam where the person of the debtor varies from time to time. An example would be the actio quod metus causa (p. 220), by which a man who has concluded a juristic act under the influence of fear, claims to recover the property he has involuntarily parted with from any one who is now, for the time being, in actual enjoyment of the benefits accruing from the act in question, e. g. the person who is now, for the time being, owner of the thing which was alienated metus causa. The effect of the action is real (i. e. it is 'in rem scripta '), in so far as it is directed not only against the author of the metus, but also against any third party to whom the former may have transferred ownership in the thing; but on the other hand the action is not a real action, because the plaintiff cannot rest his claim against the third party on his ownership (the defendant himself being owner), but must rest it on an obligation, springing from the metus and aiming at the retransfer to the plaintiff of the ownership he had involuntarily given up. Another example occurs in the case of a partition suit where one co-owner of property claims the partition of the joint property from any one who is, for the time being, co-owner of the same property. III. Actiones in personam. Obligations arise either from contracts (or facts analogous to contracts), or from delicts (or facts analogous to delicts). Hence 1 For more details on the praejudicia v. Bekker, Actionen, vol. i. p. 283 ff. § 52. all actions in personam are either contractual (or quasi-contractual) or delictual (or quasi-delictual) (§ 77). IV. Actiones stricti juris and Actiones bonae fidei. Contracts are either stricti juris negotia or bonae fidei negotia according as the liability involved is precisely determined or not (§ 76). Hence all contractual actions are either actiones stricti juris (actions on loans, stipulationes, &c.) or actiones bonae fidei (actions on sales, lettings, bailments, &c.). An actio stricti juris is called a condictio if the formula does not state the ground on which the action is based (§ 80, n. 6). The intentio in an actio bonae fidei is always incerta (quidquid Num. Num. Ao. Ao. dare facere oportet ex bona fide), the intentio of an actio stricti juris is only incerta when the express object of the negotium stricti juris is an incertum. In cases of an incerta intentio (i. e. in all cases of bonae fidei actions) the intentio opens with a so-called 'demonstratio,' i. e. with a clause naming the contract from which the claim for the incertum (the quidquid) arises. example: quod Aus. Aus, apud Num. Num. hominem deposuit, quidquid, &c. V. Actiones ex delicto. For A delict may render the delinquent liable to pay either compensation or a penalty or both, and in the last case the same action may be available for the double purpose of claiming compensation and exacting the penalty, or again, the delict (e. g. theft) may give rise to two independent actions: one for the recovery of compensation (e. g. the condictio furtiva), the other for the recovery of a penalty (e. g. the actio furti). Hence all delictual actions are either rei persequendae causa comparatae (reparatory), or poenae persequendae causa comparatae (penal), or mixtae (reparatory and penal). The right to sue for the penalty consequent on the commission of a delict may either be confined to the person injured or may be open to everybody (cuivis ex populo). Hence all penal actions (actiones poenae persequendae causa comparatae, actiones poenales) are either private (open only to the injured party), or 'populares.' § II. de actionibus (4, 6): Omnium autem actionum quibus inter aliquos apud judices arbitrosve de quaque re quaeritur summa divisio in dua genera deducitur: aut enim in rem § 52. : § 13 eod. Praejudiciales actiones in rem esse videntur : quales sunt, per quas quaeritur, an aliquis liber vel an libertus sit, vel de partu agnoscendo. § 20 eod. Quaedam actiones mixtam causam optinere videntur, tam in rem quam in personam: qualis est familiae erciscundae actio, quae competit coheredibus de dividenda hereditate. Item communi dividundo, quae inter eos redditur inter quos aliquid commune est, ut id dividatur; item finium regundorum, quae inter eos agitur qui confines agros habent. § 53. Condemnatio and Exceptio. I. Condemnatio. The condemnatio is the clause in the formula by which the praetor orders the judex to condemn the defendant. The condition on which the condemnatio is to take place is contained in the intentio. If the intentio is true, the judex is to condemn. It is only in the actiones prejudiciales (p. 279) that the formula consists of nothing but an intentio, a condemnatio not being needed in such cases, because the sole purpose of the formula is to require the judex to pronounce upon the specific question (say, of status) submitted to him (pronuntiatio). The condemnatio, as ordered by the praetor, invariably consists in a direction to the judex to condemn the defendant in a sum of money (pecuniaria condemnatio), even in cases where the plaintiff $ 53. |