Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

laesio enormis

n. [Latn "loss beyond half or great"] Civil law. 1. The sale of a thing for which the buyer paid less than half of its real value. 0 The seller could rescind the sale, but the buyer could keep the item purchased by paying the full value. 2. The principle by which a seller may rescind a contract if a sale yields less than half the true value of the thing sold. - Also termed lesion. "Lesion (laesio enormis) was the rule, established very late, that a seller could rescind a contract if he had received less than half its real value [Iln spite of its imperfections, lesion not only was adopted in all modern civilian systems (French Code Civil 1674-1683), but became the means of testing the validity of contracts generally by their fairness, a principle embodied in the German Civil Code (section 138) and the Swiss Code of Obligations (section 21). Such a test is no more difficult to apply in law than in equity, where it has long been established in our system. As the Romans applied it, it was a clumsy and inadequate way of reaching this result. In modern courts, in civil-law countries, it invests judges with a discretion not very likely to be abused, but sufficient to act as a deterrent to the grosser forms of economic exploitation." Max Radin, Handbook of Roman Law 233-34 (1927).