The 1st Reserved Chamber of Business Law condemned the former partners of a company to pay compensation for material damages corresponding to the amount disbursed in respect of labor debts incurred before the assignment of the corporate quotas (more than R$ 334 thousand). However, the panel denied the request for compensation for moral damages filed by the company.
According to the case records, the plaintiff company had its ownership transferred and the former partners assumed responsibility for all debts prior to the transfer.
However, the company had to bear various debts from labor lawsuits, but the defendants refused to reimburse the amount. The company claimed that its name was entered in the register of bad payers on account of these debts, which would have caused moral damage.
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The rapporteur of the appeal, Appellate Judge Marcelo Fortes Barbosa, stated in his vote that the company proved the disbursement of the amounts related to the convictions in the labor lawsuits and that the documents attached to the case records show that the lawsuits were filed before the conclusion of the legal transaction and, therefore, in a period of the defendants’ responsibility.
At the first instance, the decision had recognized the extinctive prescription with respect to a portion of the amount of compensation for material damages. But on appeal, the panel considered that the cause of action is equivalent to the disbursement of the amounts relating to the labor convictions and only as from the actual payment may the incidence of the extinctive period be admitted, and not as from the res judicata of the convicting judgments.
“Comparing the date of the first payment made by the plaintiff (October 21, 2010) with that of the filing of this action (March 21, 2017), it cannot, by any means, be argued that the ten-year period was exceeded, and the extinctive prescription was not consummated, not even partially, the right of action conferred upon the plaintiff remaining intact”, the rapporteur wrote in his vote.
With regard to the request for compensation for moral damage, the magistrate stated that the initial pleading did not present sufficient concrete elements. He cites case law of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) and emphasizes that “the breach of an obligational duty, in itself, cannot be deemed an inducer of any extrapatrimonial loss, generating, it is certain, only annoyances or disruptions, which do not lead to a reimbursement”. Source: Court of Justice of São Paulo (TJSP)
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