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• The comparison of the civil law liability for the actions of courts and the civil law liability of attorneys in view of the standard of attributability

  128-148.

  Zsolt Zsurzsa

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  123

  It is a basic requirement of society that those who are infringed upon in exercising their rights, may enforce the sanctions of the infringement in a judicial process. This process is mainly executed by state courts in most legal systems, which are supposed to settle legal disputes by interpreting the relevant laws, and by taking the relevant case law into consideration. However, this is a complex process that requires professional legal knowledge from the parties. Attorneys are meant to be those professionals, who help people seeking justice to obtain their respective compensation, and also with other problems requiring legal expertise. The attorneys shall also execute this ask to the best of their knowledge. In some cases, however, this legal enforcement process may fail, which may result in the person seeking legal advice or compensation to lose its opportunity to pursue its claim permanently.
  This case might happen as a result of the actions or omissions of courts, or that of attorneys. In these cases, it is logical that the liability of these two actors of justice for the parties’ damages may be decided upon by assessing the quality of work that has led to a person suffering material damages. It would be easy to assume that the standard for the reasonable conduct for both actors is very high. However, apparently the standard for the reasonable conduct of courts seems to be a lot lower than that of attorneys in the judicial practice. In practice, only in case of the most severe infringements of courts may the injured parties receive compensation for damages, while a lot less severe infringement – or even quite the same infringements – may result in the attribution of the attorney’s liability.
  I intend to analyze this difference in the civil liability of the two actors in the light of the legal background, legal practice and the different tasks of courts and attorneys as well as the reasons of this phenomenon, and form an opinion on whether it can be justified or this practice should be discouraged. To do so, I analyze the relevant Hungarian judicial practice and legal science, and cite some foreign examples as well.