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Search Results
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EL DERECHO A LA INDEMNIZACIÓN POR MUERTE DE LAS PAREJAS ESTABLES EN LOS ACCIDENTES DE CIRCULACIÓN
Los accidentes de circulación provocan anualmente muchas muertes y dejan víctimas con derecho a percibir una indemnización. De no ser porque estos accidentes están cubiertos por un seguro de responsabilidad civil de carácter obligatorio, se aplicarían las reglas generales que, en materia de responsabilidad extracontractual, han ido perfilando los tribunales de justicia, hacia la teoría de las indemnizaciones ex iure proprio. Pero el legislador ha considerado necesario controlar el excesivo importe de las indemnizaciones para abaratar los costos del seguro obligatorio y lo ha hecho mediante un insólito sistema: el establecimiento de un baremo vinculante que tasa no sólo las cuantías de las indemnizaciones sino, también, las personas con derecho a ser indemnizados. Estos “perjudicados tabulares” distan de constituir un conjunto claro y preciso de personas, sobre todo si tenemos en cuenta la vertiginosa evolución que, en España, ha sufrido la palabra ‘cónyuge’, después de las reformas del matrimonio por leyes 13/2005 y 15/2005, así como por el nuevo régimen autonómico de las parejas no casadas. En este trabajo hemos expuesto someramente el estado de estas cuestiones en el Derecho español, en sus tres vertientes implicadas en el problema: el Derecho de Daños, el Derecho de Seguros, y el Derecho de Familia.
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THE ADJUSTABILITY OF COURT-ORDERED MONETARY JUDGMENTS IN CONTRACTUAL AND EXTRACONTRACTUAL LAW. A DOGMATIC ANALYSIS OF OBLIGATIONS OF SUM AND VALUE AND AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF JUDICIAL BEHAVIOR
The aim of this paper is to explain the asymmetry of judicial decisions con- cerning the date of accrual of the readjustment of judicial sentence to a sum of money in cases of breach of contract and torts using dogmatic concepts and tools of the legal theory. Without basing itself on these, judicial practice assumes in the interpretation of the law the categories of obligations of sum and value and of being obliged and being liable. To do so, we analyzed seventy one cassation judgments of the First Chamber of the Supreme Court, randomly chosen and handed down between 2008 and 2023. All of them condemn to a sum of money, either as compensation for damages (contractual or non-contractual) or for the return of a non-paid debt, but assume different criteria on the different periods for the accrual of the adjustment granted. Despite the disparity of criteria, there is, in broad terms, a certain uniformity, which is consistent with the jurisprudential category that distinguishes between obligations of sum and of value. This paper aims to show that this coherence is not the product of chance, but that the judiciary intuitively adopts decisions that reflect these jurisprudential categories when interpreting the law. Finally, we intend to collaborate with the effective development of a practice of following precedents, which is essential in a State governed by the rule of law, by showing its necessity and possibility.
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THE INFLUENCE OF TORT LAW ON STATE LIABILITY FOR LACK OF SERVICE
This article analyzes the influence of tort law on State liability for lack of service from Peter Cane’s theory developed in Tort Law and Public Functions. At this point, the paper addresses three fundamental aspects: the normative structure in the relationships of juridical inequality, the role of egalitarianism in State responsibility, and the duty to compensate the damages caused by public agents. First, it states that the normative structure of public responsibility must be understood in terms of corrective justice since there is a party that must correct the illegitimate damage caused by another. Second, it proposes that equality between the parties functions as a distributive criterion to reduce the state subordination exercised on the administered. Finally, it contrasts the objectives of State responsibility and tort law and identifies the general reasons why the Administration should compensate for the damages caused to the administered.
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THE PRINCIPLE OF PROPORTIONALITY IN PRIVATE LAW: A GENERAL APPROACH AND A PARTICULARIZATION FROM A CONSUMER PROTECTION PERSPECTIVE
The principle of proportionality, rooted in ideals of balance and reasonableness, is challenged at the legal level given its equivocal formulation. In public law, it is generally referred to as limiting the State’s discretion and protecting the rights of individuals through a threefold examination of adequacy, necessity, and proportionality in a strict sense. Such an analysis cannot be simply transferred to private law, either because it could end up eroding the logic of private autonomy, or because relations between private individuals cannot be qualified by the extent to which public policies affect fundamental rights. On the contrary, an evaluative weighing of the rights assigned to each party must be carried out, whether this exercise is done ex ante by the legislator, or ex post by the court. Hence, it is proposed that, unless there is an express or implicit redirection to the constitutional meaning of the principle, the balance between the rights of individuals must be observed in the light of criteria that are proper to private law, such as accepted good behavior (boni mores) and good faith. For these purposes, it is also postulated that in consumer law only a particularization of these rules can be observed, but this does not detract from the fact that their basis can be observed in other private law relationships, where there is a weakness of one of the parties, so that the principle of proportionality, based on ideas from the private law sphere, also serves as a corrective element.
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CROSS-BORDER DIVORCES AND INTERNATIONAL JURISDICTION: THE SPANISH SUPREME COURT DOCTRINE
International divorces are becoming more frequent every day. In many cases, there is a special interest for the parties in litigating before the courts of a certain State; the “forum shopping” mechanism is acquiring special relevance in order to obtain the most favorable forum, in particular regarding the applicable Law. Currently the main rule for international jurisdiction in the European Union is founded on Regulation 2201/2003. Its section 3 contains a wide number of grounds of jurisdiction for this purpose. The application of this Regulation has displaced the Spanish internal rules (section 22, Organic Act on the Judiciary 1985). Concerning the application of the mentioned Regulation, the Supreme Court has addressed some controversial issues related to the determination of the international jurisdiction of Spanish courts on divorces.