Ipotesi in tema di responsabilità per fatto altrui nel diritto penale romano

In Roman law the patres familias were liable for delicta committed by their subjects, but they could choose whether to pay the penalty or to bury the offender; a similar mechanism governed the liability of owners of animals that had caused damage. In relation to particular situations in which it was difficult to hold the true author of the unlawful act liable or even to identify him, the praetor introduced some actiones in factum, in which the search for a person responsible was independent not only of a subjective criterion of imputation, but also of physical causality. Some jurists describe this liability for the actions of others by the criterion of culpa in eligendo, a kind of presumed fault, which does not have to be proved and which is configured as an a posteriori justification for the attribution of risk.