3 Again, all rights which your slaves acquire by tradition, stipulation,
or any other title, are acquired for you, even though the acquisition be
without your knowledge, or even against your will; for a slave, who
is in the power of another person, can have nothing of his own.
Consequently, if he is instituted heir, he must, in order to be able to
accept the inheritance, have the command of his master; and if he has
that command, and accepts the inheritance, it is acquired for his master
exactly as if the latter had himself been instituted heir; and it is
precisely the same with a legacy. And not only is ownership acquired for
you by those in your power, but also possession; for you are deemed to
possess everything of which they have obtained detention, and thus
they are to you instruments through whom ownership may be acquired by
usucapion or long possession.
4 Respecting slaves in whom a person has only a usufruct, the rule is,
that what they acquire by means of the property of the usufructuary,
or by their own work, is acquired for him; but what they acquire by
any other means belongs to their owner, to whom they belong themselves.
Accordingly, if such a slave is instituted heir, or made legatee
or donee, the succession, legacy, or gift is acquired, not for the
usufructuary, but for the owner. And a man who in good faith possesses a
free man or a slave belonging to another person has the same rights as
a usufructuary; what they acquire by any other mode than the two we have
mentioned belongs in the one case to the free man, in the other to the
slave's real master. After a possessor in good faith has acquired the
ownership of a slave by usucapion, everything which the slave acquires
belongs to him without distinction; but a fructuary cannot acquire
ownership of a slave in this way, because in the first place he does not
possess the slave at all, but has merely a right of usufruct in him,
and because in the second place he is aware of the existence of another
owner. Moreover, you can acquire possession as well as ownership through
slaves in whom you have a usufruct or whom you possess in good faith,
and through free persons whom in good faith you believe to be your
slaves, though as regards all these classes we must be understood to
speak with strict reference to the distinction drawn above, and to mean
only detention which they have obtained by means of your property or
their own work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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