The predicability of moral damages lawsuits’ results: a reflection based upon STJ’ decisions in bank-consumer relations

Abstract

The predictability of the lawsuits’ results is one of the facets of the principle of legal certainty, wich is brazilian legal system´s guide. The method of free quantification adopted by the civil procedure code grants freedom to judges when determining the moral damages compensatory amount, what may result in not being able to predict the indemnification value. On the other hand, the courts may get around the impredictability trough their decisions’ uniformization. The tendency in adopting certain criteria in damages quantification or in limiting the amount could allow litigators to forecast the result of a winning judicial cause. In order to identify how this legal option is interpreted by the judicial system, the present work is limited to bank consumers relations, whose amounts were revised by the Superior Tribunal de JusTiça, from october 2000 to april 2007. Generally, the Superior Tribunal de Justiça intervenes to reduce the amounts quantified by the inferior courts. Therefore, this work highlights the possibility that the court might establish a monetary limit or a “price control” to the moral damages and inquires if the suposed “price control” may work as an obstacle to future consumers’ demands.