PUNITIVE DAMAGES. A REALITY IN MEXICO

Dear clients and friends:

The possibility that individuals, companies and other groups with legal personality may be sanctioned by a judge with the payment of stratospheric amounts of money as a result of a lawsuit for moral damages, is a reality in Mexico.

The ministers of the First Courtroom of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation have accepted the legal concept of ("punitive damages") in the case known publicly as "Mayan Palace", a concept that, until then, had been applied mainly in legal systems related to common law.

In the words of the ministers, this legal concept is mentioned above because the right to compensation for moral damages must not only satisfy the rights of the affected party, but also achieve an ideal of social retribution by imposing an additional penalty on the tortfeasor.

These punitive damages are an exemplary punishment with a double purpose: both dissuasive of the commission of harmful conducts, and an incentive to a culture of responsibility that makes it economically more convenient, especially for the business sector, to invest in infrastructure and damage prevention mechanisms, than to incur in illegal conducts.

In the Mayan Palace case, the amount to which the hotel chain was sentenced as a result of the death of a person within its recreational areas was initially set by a judge at 8 million pesos, but the ministers of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, after incorporating the concept of punitive damages into the analysis, set the final sum at more than 30 million pesos ($2.5 million dollars at the time).

This new figure makes attractive today the presentation of claims for moral damages to obtain multimillionaire reparations that are no longer a utopia, therefore, it summons all sectors, and especially the business sector, to take preventive measures in their activities and commercial turns before this legal contingency.

We remain at your service in case you wish to receive further information.



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