Great classic Spanish Court: How great is the Supreme! Great meeting The sentence that I want to comment today is a classic from 1912: the famous case of the monk raptor and suicide.
As you know, 1912 was a great year. On 17 and 18 January, Robert F. Scott reached the South Pole, and died a month after the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. The American suffragettes organized demonstrations throughout New York. The then King of Spain, attended the launch of the first warship built after the destruction of the English army in Cuba and the Philippines. April 14, at 12 least twenty of the night, the trasanláctico Titanic collided with an iceberg .... And almost ended the year on 6 December, the Supreme Court first recognized in our jurisprudence, the possibility of compensation for moral damage caused by defamation.
The facts that led so famous resolution back to 1910. The newspaper El Liberal "published a" loose "on the front page no less, which reported on the gruesome story of a Capuchin friar who had eloped with a young woman and killed a family it. Both were identified with name and surname. At that time, you see, it was fashionable to accuse the clergy abuse women, not children.
In case you are curious, the text of the "loose" as follows: " raptor Fraile and suicidal. (By telegraph.) Totana, 19. On 17 September, at night, abscond from their father Capuchin convent Fulgencio Novelda, vice president and professor of Physics at the College which they lead, taking with them the beautiful Miss Maria Josefa Musso Garrigues, who had been scandalous succession three months earlier. Being caught entering Lorca by an uncle of the latter, the said religious attempt on his life, being killed on the spot. She was returned to the bosom of his family . "
The fact is that the news turned out to be false. Although the paper published on the third day an amendment, the father of the girl, who was also the mayor of Totana, came to Madrid to kill the Director of "libel", demanded a personal compensation. Then thought better of it and chose to sue both him and the publisher of the newspaper. I did well, because the issue went to the Supreme, who finished dictating a sentence that is still quoted today. Since then, a few paragraphs, read aloud, sound like Calderon:
" The honor-the honor and reputation of women are social goods of greater value, and impairment loss further consideration that you may have in a civilized society crippling to bear on it the character of trust and custody of the sacred purpose of the home, foundation and cornerstone of the public company must therefore be assessed these damages as one of the most serious, forcing them into account to the legislature to legislate and the courts responsible for applying the law and justice can be achieved in order to seek remedy for a regulatory standard is set, establishing a civil liability, harmonized with the legal principles that inform our common law, if not is to encourage society negligence suicide, which would be the abandonment of a major social element as women to the whims of public slander. "
But the point is this:
" Taken into account these social foundations of all law and all justice organization, there is no denying that the fact issue in the case constitutes a complete and utter theft of personal dignity, family and social life of the young injured, violently stripped of all titles of decency and honesty that won her the estimate made public by presenting clear and loud so guilty leaks the parental home and cohabitation sacrilege accomplished, with all its natural consequences, disabling the effect of public exposure made libelous in large circulation newspapers such as The Liberal, which make correction impossible, both because the indelible impression in the minds of his readers as for the reproduction of all offensive loose made in the press does not change settled law, the liability of the play, because what the law punishes is the spread of the injury, and this is what the trial court, to bring the moral damage caused to monetary compensation, not confused, as expected, the powers of the judiciary to the legislative branch, because this would require a declaration in available abstract or general any new law, which does not happen here because the judge, using the rules of fairness that are fundamental maxims of universal jurisdiction is limited, as interpreter of the law, to better explain legal principles or clearly and distinctly less exposed, but "existing", which define the damage in its various manifestations to justify, given that it is indifferent request in civil or criminal action, monetary compensation, which, if it is never enough compensation for all offenses so serious, the end is that comes closest to estimating the direct material damage Musso caused to the young and in their possession, as natural and logical corollaries, other damages, that is, material and social, according to the criteria so wisely stated in Law 21, Title 9. °, of the 7th Game (...)"
Finally, I leave tomorrow. Good night.