Product Liability: Comments on Some Decisions of Brazilian Superior Court of Justice

Abstract

This article aims to point out more precise outlines to the supplier's civil liability for defect of the product. The study is based on decisions of the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice pertaining to the four questions that constitute the parts into which the article is divided: i) the (persistent) conceptual confusion between defective products that cause harm to consumers and goods that are not fit to their purpose; ii) the legal basis for the indemnity of purely patrimonial damages resulting from goods that are not fit to their purpose; iii) the limits between the demonstration of the fact constituting the consumer's alleged right to compensation and the proof of the absence of a defect in the product allegedly causing the damage; iv) the greater or lesser allowable elasticity in the proof of the causal link compared to decisions of the Court of Justice of European Union. The first two questions concern the undue variation of supplier’s for goods that are not fit to their purpose responsibility for that of defective product that cause harm to consumers; the last two raise important questions regarding the burden of proof.