The researcher Manuel Grasso aims to reconstruct a sector of Roman private law relating to the legal regime of obligations, both contracts and private torts.
The research of Law School Professor Manuel Grasso is a project of a historical-legal nature, and in particular, a legal-romanistic one. Its purpose is to reconstruct a sector of Roman private law relating to the legal regime of obligations, both in terms of contracts and private torts.
The question that guides the study is the following: in Roman law, in certain cases and under certain conditions, the change of circumstances existing at the time of the emergence of a contractual obligation could generate effects on the obligatory relationship. Is it possible to recognize this same phenomenon in some sector of tort obligations?
The research aims to demonstrate, by identifying the assumptions and the respective solutions, the relevance that certain superveniences have in the field of contractual obligations; and to highlight the foundations and mechanisms that made it possible to manage these problems in Roman law.
The research focuses on the stability of the obligatory bond in the face of reality and its contingencies. Although this issue has been dealt with mainly in the contractual field, it does not seem inappropriate to ask about the relevance of supervening, extraordinary or irresistible events in the field of non-contractual obligations.
The objective is to demonstrate, through the identification of cases and their respective solutions, the relevance that certain supervening events have in the field of contractual obligations, and to highlight the foundations and mechanisms that made it possible to address these problems in Roman law. It is also proposed to examine the cases in which certain supervening events have an impact on tort obligations, in order to demonstrate that in this field there are legal grounds and criteria different from those of the contractual field.