Today’s pill #255: A vignette of daily life under the Roman law
Roman law is very funny, as it preserves these vignettes of daily life.
One day a man sends his slave to the barber to get a shave. The barbershop is adjacent to an athletic field. Two guys are on the athletic field, throwing a ball back and forth. One of them throws the ball badly, the other guy fails to catch it, the ball flies into the barbershop, hits the hand of the barber, which cuts the slave’s throat and he dies. Who’s liable under the Roman law?
Is it athlete one, who throws the ball badly, is it athlete two, who failed to catch it, is the barber who actually cut the slave’s throat, is it the owner of the slave for being stupid enough to send his slave to get a shave in a place adjacent to a playing filed, or is it the Roman state for accepting and zoning a barbershop next to an athletic field?
We don’t have the answer… We have various juris commenting on this one, but we don’t have what was actually ruled. That’s how complicated the Roman law got.
Story source: Gregory Aldrete
