Rightly or wrongly, America is often thought of in Europe as an overly litigious society, with lawsuits occasionally seeming to reach the heights of absurdity. Who, for example, has not heard of the famous case of a customer in America suing a fast food restaurant for negligence in making its coffee too hot?
But what happens when a society goes in the opposite direction and has a shaky legal infrastructure for recovery of losses in tort? The short answer is that people and legal entities are sometimes not able to receive adequate compensation in the court system for wrongdoings committed against them.
The law of torts deals with civil wrongs which are considered by law as grounds for a lawsuit. For all of its social, economic and law reform progress in recent years, unfortunately Latvia remains sorely in need of tort law reform 's which is to say, the law of torts needs to be developed more fully under the Latvian legal system. The reason, to put it simply, is that civil law focuses almost exclusively on compensatory damages.
The awarding of punitive damages is almost unheard of. And while it is only natural that punitive damages not be awarded as frequently as compensatory damages, in the context of tort law remedies, punitive damages are a useful tool in society's toolbox for punishing civil acts so offensive that mere compensatory damages are inadequate.
Yet you will likely be at great pains to find a case of award of punitive damages in tort.
Coupled with the introduction of a more fully developed law of torts, a more comprehensive system of specific performance and injunctive relief should also be introduced. Currently, the civil procedure law in this regard is very, very limited.
It is sometimes said that this is only natural, since Latvian law is firmly rooted in the civil law as opposed to common law tradition, without any historical court of equity providing for equitable remedies such as injunctive relief. Yet while it is true that Latvia is firmly rooted in the civil law tradition, it is also true that many European civil law environments have adequate tort and injunctive relief remedies within their civil law legal systems. And what amounts to punitive damages is already on the books when it comes to competition law violations, so it is hardly a departure from a complete system of law to more comprehensively introduce these legal tools to Latvia.
The implications of the existence of such gaps in the law are not felt by everyone on a daily basis. Yet when the time comes, and there is the need for the legal system to effectively respond to a plaintiff seeking remedies for, say, the civil wrong of intentional interference in business relations, or a host of other civil wrongdoings, even with the aid of skillful and resourceful legal counsel, the gaps may be acutely felt indeed, having severe potential impact upon the foreign investor and the domestic businessman or ordinary citizen alike. While Latvia may not wish to or need to follow America's example of tort litigation at the drop of a hat, some kind of adequate tort litigation system is long overdue.
Valters Kronbergs is managing partner of Kronbergs and Cukste, a member of Baltic Legal Solutions, a pan-Baltic integrated legal network of law firms which includes Teder, Glikman & Partnerid in Estonia and Jurevicius, Balciunas & Bartkus in Lithuania, dedicated to providing a quality 'one-stop shop' approach to clients' needs in the Baltics.
