Successful Case
The LESHCHENKO & PARTNERS team won a UAH 2 million case in the court of first instance
The LESHCHENKO & PARTNERS team won a case in the court of first instance — the court fully dismissed the claim seeking to recover from our client UAH 1.5 million in material damages and UAH 500,000 in moral damages.
The claim concerned the sale of a vehicle which, according to the plaintiff, was allegedly of improper quality. In court, we proved that these allegations were not supported by any proper or admissible evidence and that the remedy chosen by the plaintiff was inappropriate under the law.
According to Article 1166(1) of the Civil Code of Ukraine, material damage shall be compensated in full by the person who caused it, but only if their fault is established. Pursuant to Article 1166(2), a person shall be released from liability if they prove that the damage was caused without their fault.
The team consistently demonstrated that:
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there was no fact of damage in the case;
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the client did not commit any wrongful acts;
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the plaintiff failed to prove fault.
Therefore, the claim for UAH 1.5 million in material damages was dismissed in full.
The same legal position was applied regarding the moral damages claim. According to paragraph 5 of the Plenum Resolution of the Supreme Court of Ukraine No. 4 of 31 March 1995, recovery of moral (non-pecuniary) damages requires a combination of three conditions:
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the existence of damage and wrongful conduct;
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a causal link between the damage and the conduct;
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the defendant’s fault.
All these elements were successfully disproved during the court proceedings. The court fully upheld the legal position of the LESHCHENKO & PARTNERS lawyers and rejected the claim in its entirety.
The team is now preparing for a possible appeal and working on recovering the costs of legal assistance from the plaintiff.
“A distinctive feature of cases of this kind is the excessive amount of damages the plaintiff seeks to recover. Therefore, it is crucial for the client to have legal support from the very beginning to maintain the position of a bona fide participant in civil relations, which ultimately prevents such unfounded claims from being satisfied”
