PRETIUM ET PRECISION

Abstract

While monetary awards are normally compensatory in civil law, they cannot obliterate extrapatrimonial losses. Why should we even attempt to repair these losses? In the context of bodily injuries, the indemnity for extrapatrimonial losses is a representation of the damage. This notion of representation has two interrelated aspects. First it insists on the qualitative equivalence between the loss and the compensation, which requires that extrapatrimonial losses be envisaged subjectively. The second aspect of the notion of representation focuses on the symbolic nature of the process of determination of the indemnity. Against that backdrop, the author examines the justification for these awards, the nature of extrapatrimonial loss, and some methods of calculation of the indemnity. Along the way, he concludes that the Supreme Court's functional approach has its counterpart in the civil law tradition, and that scientific methods of calculation of the extrapatrimonial award are counterproductive.