Liability for Damages, Crime and Coherence of the Legal Order From Acquittal to Negligence

Abstract

Criminal courts and civil courts do not always hold the same criteria on liability for damages, when the act that causes harm is a crime, and particularly when it is a negligence. In their decisions, the issue is posed as a hard difficulty from the perspective of the postulate of the unity of the legal order or system. However, the requirement that the law offer coherent solutions in determining the decision criteria is relevant, especially when it comes to verifying whether a criminal sentence can acquire the effect of res iudicata for the civil action, as explicitly stated in the art. 116 LECr. On the one hand, an analysis from constitutional law is necessary, since it is possible that the rights of the injured party may be undermined. On the other hand, the issue has to be examined within the framework of the different rules of the criminal process and the civil process, fundamentally regarding the principle in dubio pro reo (criminal process) and the rules of the burden of proof (civil process). Finally, it must be examined whether Spanish law includes different concepts of negligence or recklessness in civil law and criminal law. The answer is conditioned, in any case, by the need for coherence in the rules that regulate legal relationships.