Del non risarcibile aquiliano: danno meramente patrimoniale, c.d. perdita di chance, danni punitivi, danno c.d. esistenziale

This article aims to point out that some of the figures recurring in the debate on extracontractual liability are indeed unable to sustain a serious screening under the categories of tortious liability. Pure economic loss is the typical contractual damage and is alien to systems like the Italian one which, providing in art. 2043 c.c. that damage has to be “ingiusto”, contradicts a loss being purely economic. The same is to be said about the loss of chance, which paradoxically is the result of what as a damage is purely economic then not “ingiusto”, at the level of causation lacks of a link properly intended, and as a loss is uncertain. Punitive damages are the fruit of a common law (the American particularly) still inclined to consider civil liability a place for the score settling and the vengeance, even though new theories try to credit them in new perspectives. Finally the “danno esistenziale” is a fairly new Italian figure of non patrimonial damage which has contributed to muddle things up, whereas what is intended by this label already finds compensation through “danno biologico” and non-pecuniary loss, the two parts in which non patrimonial damage still divides.