Moral injury is an emotional suffering that a person suffers when they feel wronged.
Damage is harm, detriment or deterioration. Morality , for its part, is the doctrine that seeks the regulation of human behavior according to an assessment of acts, which can be considered good or bad according to their characteristics and consequences.
The idea of moral damage , in this framework, refers to a symbolic injury that a person suffers when feeling wronged. It should be noted that, at a legal level, damage can be attributed to another individual due to their negligence or malice; The person responsible for the damage, therefore, must assume reparation for it, compensating the victim.
While property damage affects assets (a house, a car, etc.), moral damage involves spiritual damage or a psychological disorder . In other words, the harmed subject experiences suffering .
Determination of moral damage
Because moral damage is abstract , its determination is complicated, as is the quantification of compensation to repair it. That is why there are various doctrines that indicate how the compensation in question should be carried out.
Suppose an actor goes on several television shows stating that his ex-partner is an unintelligent woman who does not like to work. He repeats these same statements in radio broadcasts and in interviews he gives to print media. The woman, faced with this situation, files a lawsuit against the man for moral damage, stating that public expressions affect her well-being and cause her pain . She even maintains that, on the street, she suffers ridicule and criticism from people she doesn't even know because of her ex-husband's statements.
Summarizing what was stated in the previous paragraphs, we could say that moral damage is the anguish, suffering, affliction (both physical and spiritual), humiliation or pain that the victim has suffered. However, it is important to analyze all of these states of mind, which occur as a direct result of the damage.
Justice can order compensation to the victim of moral damage.
The compensation
If the concept of moral damage were defined simply as these feelings that arise from a specific damage, then we could say that any individual who experiences them could demand that Justice compensate them; However, this is not possible unless said states of mind occur as a result of the deprivation of a legal right, and the victim had a recognized interest in it.
Therefore, we should not focus on suffering or pain to define moral damage, since the victim will be compensated for them as long as the legal system recognizes that these arise from the injury to a power to act that has frustrated or prevented you from satisfying or enjoying certain non-property interests. These interests can be patrimonial or non-property.
In this framework, it is correct to say that moral damage is that which affects the feelings, beliefs, mental or physical health, social esteem or dignity of a person, that is, those rights that the majority doctrine includes in the group of extra-patrimonial or personality ones. The two relevant assumptions in this context are the following: the affected legal asset is extra-patrimonial; the injured interest had been legally recognized before the damage.
Types of moral damage
According to classical Italian doctrine, we can differentiate between two types of moral damage: objective and subjective .
The first is that which an individual suffers in his social consideration; The second, however, is what can be defined as physical pain, a series of afflictions or anguish. For example: the objective would be the one caused by slander that can tarnish someone's good name; subjective, physical offenses or injuries.