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Abstract
The balance within the consensual obligation “locatio conductio insularum”, that is the one between the contractual duties “uti frui-mercedem” in late Republican Roman law and the early Imperial period, represents an “etiological dogma” of the contract itself. It imposes itself as the major key to interpreting the conduct of the parties during the execution of the contractual relationship. Emblematic in this sense is the figure of the deductio ex mercede in urban-residential leases, whose practical purpose allows for an exploration of its nature, reasons, limits, and development even up to contemporary law. Drawing on the continental – French and Spanish – derivation of the civil law of the State of Louisiana, through an analysis carried out from a Roman law perspective purely, this paper aims to highlight the characteristic of the deductio ex mercede as a self-help remedy, an instrument of “Offensive Selbsthilfe” which, although it does not find an equivalent in codified Italian – and continental – ius privatorum, seems to have bequeathed its authentic features to the “repair and deduct remedy” required and regulated by Article 2964 of the Louisiana Civil Code.
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