Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

breach of their contract with him, but that would not get their homes back. Even if that previous owner had sold on the con dition that the new owner keep the tenants in their original situation, the latter would not have to restore them if he could afford to absorb the damages from a suit for breach of the con tract of sale. And even this might not have much effect, if the previous owner had moved far from the local jurisdiction and thus was able in practice to evade suits from his former tenants. As with sale, additional terms in specific instances might treat timing of payments, periodic approval of work done, timing of delivery, or penalties for failure to meet these terms. The contract of partnership (Latin societas ) has a character different from any of the others. It can involve any number of participants. When the agreement is initially made, the partners agree on several things: the purpose of the venture, whether it is a one-time arrangement or ongoing, the shares of the total profits and losses each partner will be responsible for, and the assets that each will commit to the project. These assets might include everything the parties owned, but were usually limited to a fixed amount, occasionally including something intangible like connections. The partnership could involve joint owner ship of property (Chapter 14), but this was not necessary, nor did joint ownership necessarily require partnership. The shares of profits and losses did have to be proportional to each other or to the initial contributions. One extreme case – profits with out danger of loss – was theoretically possible. Keep in mind, however, that if a proposed partnership were too unfair, the disfavored parties would likely not agree to it in the first place.

130