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Article
Planned Disregard in Consumer Relations: A Proposition to Redress Consumer’s Lost Time
Author(s)
Laís Bergstein
Full-Text PDF XML 615 Views
DOI:10.17265/1548-6605/2019.04.001
Affiliation(s)
Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná, Brazil
Federal University of Rio Grande do University, Brazil
ABSTRACT
Time exerts multiple
influences on consumer relations since it is a triggering factor for several
legal obligations, especially in long-term contractual bounds. The valuation of
time as an essential and limited resource has emerged in the context of post-modernity
with the formation of a new consciousness about the effects that its passage
exerts on people. In Brazil, especially since 2009, several judicial decisions
recognized the time lost by consumers trying to solve conflicts with suppliers
as a special kind of moral damage and guaranteed the right to redress. However,
many other consumers in similar situations had the same right denied in courts,
mostly due to the lack of criteria to compensate the time lost due to acts
attributable to suppliers. In this context, the research proposes a double
criteria to pursue the adequate compensation for the time lost by consumer
through the evaluation of supplier’s conducts. The study makes a distinction of
consumer’s time and supplier’s time and defines the commercial practice
entitled “planned disregard” as the abusive devaluation of time and the efforts
made by consumers to achieve a successful conclusion to consumer contracts,
mostly due to the lack of investments in efficient customer care services. This
type of commercial practice violates the limits of good faith and represents an
excessive advantage for the supplier, breaking the legal balance that the law
establishes in consumer relations. The paper also approaches the legal duties
of effective prevention and full redress of damages in Brazilian consumer law
which are the legal tools to compensate the damage due to the loss of time
suffered by consumers. Finally, it suggests how the members of the national
consumer protection system, such as the regulatory agencies, civil entities,
and the judiciary may contribute with structural processes to the prevention of
undue loss of consumer time.
KEYWORDS
consumer time, planned disregard, damage due to time lost, full redress, structural processes
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