A tutela da oportunidade

: sobre a (in)admissibilidade da indemnização pela perda de chance, em especial no domínio da responsabilidade civil médica

Abstract

The shortfall of the classic scheme of civil liability to protect the legal position of the injured party who, in certain situations, is faced with the difficulty to show evidence in order to connect agent’s act and the damage suffered had been made clearer by the awareness of the limitations of human knowledge. The Loss of Chance Doctrine provides an answer to a need for justice that has not been foreseen by the legislator, but which emerges from reality. It offers an intermediate form of compensation that takes into account the context in which the injury occurred and adapts the compensation to the specific nature of the damage suffered. Hence the need and our interest to study its admissibility in various fields, particularly in the scope of medical civil liability. Given the need for a favor victimae intervention, it will be important to understand whether the loss of the opportunity to achieve a cure or survival resulting from a medical error can, by itself, justify the compensation of a patient who met a set of conditions on which the verification of that positive effect depended.

Date of Award	24 Feb 2022
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Agostinho Guedes (Supervisor)