Legal Journals

Licari on Punitive Damages

By Marta Requejo

François-Xavier Licari, Professor at the University of Metz (Paul-Verlaine) has posted Taking Punitive Damages Seriously: Why a French Court Did Not Recognize An American Decision Awarding Punitive Damages and Why it Should Have  on SSRN. Here is the English abstract  (the article is written in French):

Recently, a French Court of Appeal (Cour d’Appel) refused to recognize a judgement (to grant an “exequatur”) of the Superior Court of California (County of Alameda) that awarded punitive damages to American citizens who bought a ship from a French seller and who faced a fundamental breach of contract. The French Court raised many grounds to refuse to grant an exequatur: French law knows exclusively compensatory damages and considers the principle of full compensation as fundamental; punitive damages create an unjust enrichment (a windfall) for the plaintiff; in casu, the allowed punitive damages were disproportionate. In sum, punitive damages hurt French public policy (l’ordre public international français). The author sustains that none of these arguments resist to an objective examination. For example, a close look at French case law shows the the principle of full compensation has never been considered as belonging to the ordre public in the international sense of the notion. Furthermore, French private law knows “private penalties” (peines privées) and some of them resemble American punitive damages. Last but not least, two recent law reform proposals militate for the introduction of punitive damages in the French Code civil. Finally, this essay advocates a better comprehension of the notion and the role of punitive damages in American law and urges French courts to give effect to reasonable punitive damages awards.

The article will be published in the  forthcoming issue of the Journal du Droit International.

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Full post as published by Conflict of Laws on September 07, 2010 (boomark / email).