Extensions to Liability
We have seen that the original scope of the lex Aquilia was extended by both jurisÂtic interpretation and praetorian intervention. Various further extensions were also made. For example, certain non-owners, such as usufructuaries,[2444] were given an analogous remedy for damage to the property.[2445] A paterfamilias was allowed to sue for injuries to those in his power,[2446] just as he could for injuries to his slaves.[2447] Such developments were, however, limited to cases where the pursuer's interest in the property was in some way analogous to that of an owner.
There was no genÂeral development of liability for anything like what in the modern law of delict is known as pure economic loss, where the pursuer's loss does not arise from injury to the pursuer's own property or person.[2448] [2449]More problematic is the question of whether a person could ever proceed under the lex Aquilia for personal injuries that he or she had suffered. As we have seen, the lex Aquilia was specifically directed at property damage. Accordingly, says Ulpian, ‘nobody is seen as owner of his own limbs' (dominus membrorum suorum nemo videtur.'"' However, the same text says that a free person who has been injured is entitled to an actio utilis. This passage, though, has been said to be ‘virtually certain' to have been ‘generalized by the compilers', and to have originally referred to a person who was injured while believing himself to be a slave.[2450] On this view, the extension of Aquilian liability to injuries to free persons was a post-classical development, and texts where personal injuries are considered without reference to the injured party's status were intended to be assumed to refer to slaves.[2451]
E.