Supreme Court of Cassation with a new case on complicity and non-pecuniary damages

The Supreme Court of Cassation ruled a new interpretative decision on a matter concerning a claim for non-pecuniary damages from a tort and complicity

With it, the supreme judges answered whether, when assessing the amount of compensation, if an objection is made to the victim's complicity in the damage, the court is limited only to the amount sought by the plaintiff, by which to reduce the complicity or not.

The Supreme Court unanimously accepted that the court's assessment of the amount of fair compensation for non-pecuniary damages from a tort is not limited by the stated claim, but an amount exceeding that requested in the claim cannot be awarded.

What does all this mean?

Let's say I'm an injured passenger in a Road accident, when it is found that I was not wearing my seat belt. Then it turns out that I contributed to the harm occurring to me by not wearing my seat belt.

If I caused part of the damage to myself, it is not fair for the at-fault driver or his insurer to cover the part for which I am responsible. Therefore, when determining compensation, the court (only if the defendant has made an objection of complicity) should take this circumstance into account and reduce the compensation to achieve a balance of responsibilities.

Usually the courts determine between 10% to 25% co-inflict for not wearing a seat belt, and in extremely rare cases it may increase to 55%-60%. This percentage reduces the amount of compensation that should be received by the injured party.

In the above example, if the court determines that the damages I suffered as a result of an accident amount to 10,000 leva and determines 25% complicity, it will order the at-fault driver or his insurer to pay a final amount of 7,500 leva.

However, let's say that I have claimed 5,000 leva as compensation for damages. The interpretative decision says that the court is not bound by this claim of mine, but cannot award more than these 5,000 leva even if complicity is taken into account.

More about co-causing and its consequences, you can find here.