Notes on Roman Law

This was the case where one person hired another to perform certain services or do certain work. There were two cases; one where the hirer employed the other to perform services not in respect to a particular thing, such as the services of domestic servants, laborers, clerks, etc., and the other where a person was hired to do work upon a particular thing, such as to repair a coat, make a ring, or carry goods. In such case the agreement was not to supply the hirer with a certain amount of labor, but with the result of labor. ( 1 ) The first class of contracts was called locatio-conductio operarum. The employer was called the conductor operarum and the servant or employee the locator-operarum. The subject-matter of this contract must always consist of services of the inferior sort (opera illiberales) not requiring special skill, and reducible to a money value. The services of a lawyer, physician, teacher, mandatory, and the like, were deemed of too high a sort to be debased ...

It was the duty of the landlord (locator) to deliver the property to the tenant (conductor) and to permit him to keep it for the time agreed upon. If the tenant was deprived of the property before the termination of his lease in consequence of the landlord's fault, the latter had to pay him full compensation (id quod interest). But if the landlord was not in fault, the tenant was entitled only to a remission of the rent. Thus, if a farm let to a tenant was confiscated, or a house burned, the tenant was entitled simply to remission of the rent. So in case of a chattel, if it was carried off by robbers, the hirer was released from payment for the unexpired term of the contract. If the lessor of a house determined to pull it down and rebuild it during the term, he had to pay the lessee compensation if the rebuilding was unnecessary, but if necessary, he was required simply to allow a remission of the rent. The landlord was also required to keep the property in good order...

The hire of things includes the hire of all kinds of property, whether houses, lands or chattels. The Roman law did not, except to a very limited extent, make any distinction in law between real and personal property as these terms are under- stood in English law. The law relating to the hire of lands and houses corresponded to the English law of landlord and tenant or leases of real property ; the hire of chattels corresponded to the English law of bailments. The Roman locator was the same as the English landlord or lessor where the subject-matter of the contract was land or a house, and was the same as the English bailor or letter where the subject-matter was a chattel. In the case of the hirer of lands or houses, however, certain special terms were employed. The hirer of a house (praedium urbanum) was called inquilinus, and the rent he paid was called pensio. The hirer of a farm was called colonus, and the rent he paid reditus (Hunter, 507). The contract of hire created...

The contract of hire was a contract by which one person (locator) agreed to let another (conductor) have the use of certain property, or to render certain services or do certain work for such other person, for an agreed compensation. As in the case of the contract of sale, the contract became binding as soon as its terms were agreed upon, and no particular form of agreement was required (Inst. III, 24). As indicated in the definition, there were two general forms of contracts of hire, the hire of things and the hire of work or services.