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3. If the defect was latent but known to the seller at the time of sale (and not to the buyer), then the sale was void and the seller was guilty of sin.
1603: England, Caveat Emptor
Unfortunately, merchants paid little heed to Saint Thomas Aquinas’s rules for responsible sellers, following instead another doctrine: caveat emptor, or let the buyer beware. Legal historians place the first formal application of the concept in the 1603 case of Chandelor v. Lopus. In that case, the seller sold what he claimed was a bezoar stone said to have magical healing properties. Strangely enough, the stone turned out not to be the real thing, so the buyer sued.
A lemon vehicle in the 21st century is something like a 17th-century bezoar stone. However, like the stone in Chandelor v. Lopus, the magic is missing.
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The buyer made no showing that the seller knew the stone was a fake when he sold it. Under medieval doctrine, the seller would have been liable for the problem anyway, because it would have been considered a latent defect in the stone without the knowledge of either party. However, the court hearing the case refused to undo the sale, holding the buyer responsible for his own decision to purchase what he believed was a magical stone without any express warranty.
The court held that a seller would not be responsible in the absence of either (1) knowledge of the truth, which would be fraud if not disclosed, or (2) an explicit express warranty from the seller that the object was in fact a magical stone. Merely saying that the stone was magical, without guaranteeing it, was not enough. Although the court did not use the phrase caveat emptor, its conclusion was plain enough.
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