АПСТРАКТНА ШТЕТА
ABSTRACT DAMAGE

Summary/Abstract: In this essay. a comparative-legal analysis is firstly made, painting out the different meanings of abstract damage in various legal systems as well as certain general characteristics common to them. In French law, this instrument of contractual liability is of willful origin and serves to reduce liability in respect of the contractual amount. But, such a reduction could be taken into consideration only in the event of non-execution reing due to severe negligence of the contractual party. This leads to the conclusion that in that legal system, abstract damage is fundamental to contractual liability, representing the preestimed amount of damage. This viewpoint of French law has been incorporated in the new Yugoslav Law of Obligations of 1978. However, prior to the effectiveness of this Law, the viewpoint of German law had been dominant in Yugoslav law, retaing the element of the amount of compensation independent of the actually sustained damage within the concept of abstract damage, with the method of estimation of the amount not being derived from the will of the parties, but the will of the law, representing the difference between the contractual price and the current value of goods at the due moment of execution. German law „conceptualogically” regards abstract damage as the scope of impossibility of execution due to the destruction of goods. This German viewpoint dominated Yugoslav law during the era of exclusive effectiveness of the General Usances for the Turnover of Goods, from 1954 to 1978. The new Yugoslav Law of Obligations has adopted both the French and German concepts of abstract damage. The field of differentiation of these two instruments is determined by the source (contract, law, etc.), but in the lack of the same, also by the fact of whether the sold goods have a current price. In the event of the affirmative, the rules of differential damage are applied.

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