For a detailed explanation of how economic damages are assessed in court rulings

For a detailed analysis of the assessment of economic loss in court judgments by Maurice Nussenbaum, published in *Les Petites Affiches* No. 176 of 4 September 2017

I. Introduction: definition of economic loss

When it comes to assessing damages, the trial judge’s discretion is absolute and cannot be overridden by the Court of Cassation. Consequently, there is no detailed legal doctrine regarding the application of the relevant methods.

In contrast to personal injury, for which a classification system was established as early as 2005 and is used to compensate victims, economic loss is multifaceted in nature, which makes it, in principle, less suited to strict codification, even though a typology was proposed by a working group in 2007 based on economic sectors and the specific issues surrounding such losses.

We must therefore revisit the concept of economic loss in order to demonstrate that, for our legal system to take better account of it, the solutions adopted to assess damages in court decisions require more detailed reasoning.

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