Problems of the Civil Liability Doctrine

Abstract

The article deals with methodological problems of the doctrine of civil liability as a form of legal liability. In the domestic civil law science it constitutes a "set of consequences" arising due to either wrongful or lawful conduct, due to fault and lack of fault, for one's own acts and the acts of the others, for the acts and for an event, when there is a causation or the causation is lacking. The main reason for this scientific situation amounts to the neglect of methodological principles and approaches to the study. The author defines and studies the three most relevant methodological issues of the civil law research of liability. First, the civilistic approach to studying liability with regard to many issues is not consistent with the theory of law that has methodological significance for all branches of the legal science: most of the measures referred to as civil liability do not correspond to the essence, principles, objectives, goals and functions of legal responsibility. Second, civil liability is mainly examined through the dogmatic method of cognition that does not allow going beyond the boundaries of constantly amended and supplemented positive law. At the same time, the legislator continually "produces" new measures that redistribute property from one person to another (compensation for lawful acts, recovery of property losses) constantly forcing to make the theory fit the law, thereby the doctrine of civil liability loses its own boundaries and hallmarks of scientificity. Third, an interdisciplinary approach is little, if any, applied to study civil liability, permissible results and research methods of related sciences (economics, sociology, psychology) that could make significant contribution to the further cognition of the nature of liability in civil law are not implemented. Resolution of these methodological issues is a compulsory element for both strengthening of the doctrine of civil liability and its further effective development and successful enforcement of regulatory norms associated with it.