ARTICLE
16 August 2024

Punitive Damage In Mexico: A Dimension Of The Fair Compensation Of Moral Damage

O
OLIVARES

Contributor

Our mission is to provide innovative solutions and highly specialized legal advice for clients facing the most complicated legal and business challenges in Mexico. OLIVARES is continuously at the forefront of new practice areas concerning copyright, litigation, regulatory, anti-counterfeiting, plant varieties, domain names, digital rights, and internet-related matters, and the firm has been responsible for precedent-setting decisions in patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Our firm is committed to developing the strongest group of legal professionals to manage the level of complexity and interdisciplinary orientation that clients require. During the first decade of the 21st century, the team successfully led efforts to reshape IP laws and change regulatory authorizations procedures in Mexico, not only through thought leadership and lobbying efforts, but the firm has also won several landmark and precedent-setting cases at the Mexican Federal and Supreme Courts levels, including in constitutional matters.
Punitive damages allow a higher compensation in favor of the plaintiff, derived from the seriousness of the wrongful act committed, with the purpose of discouraging the harmful conduct.
Mexico Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration

Punitive damages allow a higher compensation in favor of the plaintiff, derived from the seriousness of the wrongful act committed, with the purpose of discouraging the harmful conduct. This type of damages is not expressly stablished in Mexican law. However, their implementation has been built based on the criteria of our Courts.

One of these criteria was recently issued by our Federal Courts, which excludes the award of punitive damages in claims for strictly economic damages. In other words, the precedent, although not mandatory, establishes that the award of punitive damages depends closely on the analysis of the moral damages suffered.

This decision takes up precedents of the Supreme Court of Justice, which has been emphatic in determining that punitive damages do not constitute an independent and different action from the analysis of moral damages, considering that punitive damages are the legal means for the victim to have its right to fair compensation for the non-economic damages suffered satisfied.

This implies that both the Supreme Court and the Courts have established that there is a link between the award of punitive and moral damages, so that in a case where only economic affectations are claimed, there is no basis for obtaining punitive damages.

At OLIVARES, our team specialized in civil and commercial litigation is interested in being continuously updated on the latest criteria issued by the different Mexican jurisdictional bodies, to propose current and valuable legal strategies for the best defense of the rights of our clients.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

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