Robert Joseph Pothier

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Robert Joseph Pothier (January 9, 1699 - March 2, 1772), was a French jurist.^[1]

He was born and died at Orléans. He studied law for the purpose of qualifying for the magistracy, and was appointed in 1720 judge of the presidial court of Orléans, thus following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He held the post for fifty-two years.

He paid particular attention to the correction and co-ordination of the text of the Pandects, his Pandectae Justinianae in novum ordinem digestae (Paris and Chartres, 1748-1752) being a classic in the study of Roman law. In 1749 he was made professor of law in the university of Orleans.

He wrote many learned monographs on French law, and much of his work was incorporated almost textually in the French Code Civil. His theories on the law of contract were also influential in England as well as in the USA.

Pothier invented the rule limiting recovery in the case of improper performance of a contractual obligation to those damages which are foreseeable. This was a great achievement: mankind had searched for such a rule for over a thousand years.

His numerous treatises include:

• Traité des obligations (1761)
• Du Contrat de vente (1762)
• Du Contrat de bail (1764)
• Du Contrat de société (1765)
• Des Contrats de prêt de consomption (1766)
• Du Contrat de depot et de mandat (1766)
• Du Contrat de nantissement (1767)

His works have been published in collected form on several occasions, the first edited by Giffrein in 1820-1824.

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