Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Delict

not based on physical damage covered – for example, spreading rumors about a competitor’s product didn’t break anything and so didn’t count. “Wrongly” was taken to imply some responsibil ity beyond mere causation. Though the idea was not expressed this abstractly, the standard seems to have been that, assum ing no malicious intent to harm another’s property, the person doing the damage had only to exercise a “reasonable” level of care in protecting others’ property from foreseeable harm to avoid a charge. Finally, “done” was taken to imply a reasonably direct form of causation, though in extremely indirect cases it would be hard to prove “wrongness” anyway. The court trying a case of this sort had to decide not only whether the defendant was liable or not, but also the value of the damage done. There were two possibilities for what damages would then be awarded. If the defendant admitted liability at the beginning of the trial, the court would calculate the dam ages and charge him that amount. If he denied liability and was defeated at trial, the plaintiff would be awarded double dam ages. This possibility illustrates a significant difference between delicts and commercial matters like suits over contracts. In the latter case, the court simply tried to put things right by making the parties live up to their obligations. In cases of delict, there may also be a penalty over and above the restitution. In the case of the lex Aquilia , that penalty could be avoided by partial confession and so is a spur to peaceful dispute resolution. For some of the other delicts there were unavoidable penalty pay ments. In these instances, it is clear that the state was not just arbitrating between two private parties (in awarding actual

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