Odpowiedzialność odszkodowawcza w ramach ujemnego interesu umowy
The Liability for Reliance Damages

Summary/Abstract: This article is discussing certain issues concerning the liability within the reliance interest under modern Polish civil law having as a background and a starting point Prof. Czachórski’s considerations over the idea of culpa in contrahendo, the reliance and expectation damages, their contemporary meaning in Polish Law of Obligations and also some present opinions of Polish legal doctrine on the essence and functions of the precontractual responsibility. The structure of the presentation is twofold. The first, shorter section gives a brief overview of the Professor Czachórski’s opinions about the legal character of the reliance interest presented in His two eminent articles published in the 60-ies of the XXth century and his comparative analysis of the differences & discrepancies among the German, Swiss and Polish civil law regarding the notions: Vertrauensinterese and Erfülungsinterese, the scope of their application in case of damages, the existence of individual prerequisites which would determine the obligation to pay compensation and their legal source. The second section is divided into five subsections in which I analyze actual problems concerning the present character of the liability based on the reliance interest and its evolution under Polish law well anticipated by Professor Czachórski, among others, the general idea of the fault in contracting (culpa in contrahendo), the legal consequences of the unsuccessful formation of contract procedure, the reliance as a delictual or “the third truck” (sui generis) liability, the grounds and further sense of the division between the reliance and expectation interest and the scope of reliance damages. The fifth subsection refers to the possibility of indemnification of non-pecuniary damages suffered ante contractum and the sixth concerns the interesting problem, only mentioned by Professor Czachórski – the aggrieved person’s contribution to the emergence or increase of the reliance damages. De lege lata the Polish Civil Code is clearly harmonized with the recent European interpretation of culpa in contrahendo regulating it explicitly (art. 72 § 2) as an autonomous source of the liability for the frustrated confidence (trust), resulting from the common obligation to negotiate loyally and in a good faith.

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