Cessio bonorum

{{Short description|Concept in Roman law}}

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{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2024}}

Cessio bonorum (Latin for a "surrender of goods"), in Roman law, is a voluntary surrender of goods by a debtor to his creditors. It did not amount to a discharge unless the property ceded was sufficient for the purpose, but it secured the debtor from personal arrest. The creditors sold the goods as partial restoration of their claims. The procedure of cessio bonorum avoided infamia, and the debtor, though his after-acquired property might be proceeded against, could not be deprived of the bare necessaries of life. The main features of the Roman law of cessio bonorum were adopted in medieval law,W. Pakter, The origins of bankruptcy in medieval canon and Roman law, in [http://www.mgh-bibliothek.de/dokumente/b/b071148.pdf Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Medieval Canon Law], 1984, ed. P. Linehan, Vatican City, 1988, 485–506. Scots law,{{cite book|last=Erskine|first=John|title=The Principles of the Law of Scotland|edition=3|year=1860|page=720}} and also in French law.{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Cessio Bonorum|volume=5|page=768}} A similar concept of the same name exists in Anglo-American law,{{ussc|name=Ogden v. Saunders|volume=25|reporter-volume=12|reporter=Wheat.|page=213|pin=215|year=1827}} (appellant argument).{{ussc|name=Sturges v. Crowninshield|volume=17|reporter-volume=4|reporter=Wheat.|page=122|pin=129|year=1819}} (appellant argument).{{cite book|last=Blackstone|first=William|author-link=William Blackstone|title=Commentaries on the Laws of England|edition=7|year=1775|volume=2|page=473|quote=[In] the law of cession, [...] if a debtor ceded, or yielded up all his fortune to his creditors, he was secured from being dragged to a gaol, ‘omni quoque corporali cruciatu semoto.’}} although this is "used … rather as a convenient than as a strictly technical term."{{cite book|last=Black|first=Henry C.|title=A Law Dictionary|edition=2|year=1910|page=185}}

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