Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:16

From: Mårten Schultz

Subject: Cash and Damage

The Swedish Supreme Court decided a neat case last week. A thief had stolen money (cash) from the drug dealer. It was established that the cash was money paid for drugs. The drug dealer sued the thief and wanted damages with the value of the stolen money. The main question in the Supreme Court was whether the drug dealer was "excluded from the protection of the tort system" due to the fact that the money had been earned through criminal activities. The Court awarded the drug dealer damages. (A decision I like since I recently argued for that view, in an article criticizing the use of an ex turpi causa non oritur-doctrine in Swedish tort law.)

The Supreme Court also decided on what kind of damage the stolen cash was. The Appellate Court had held that stolen cash is a pure economic loss, without much explanation. (Pure economic loss, it is often said, is normally only compensated if the wrongdoer acted criminally or if there is a special rule that holds something else.) The Supreme Court stated that stolen cash is a property damage. This is also the dominant view in Swedish law. One reason for this is the functional argument that if someone, for instance, negligently puts fire to the stack of cash that we all keep in our homes, it should be possible to receive compensation. There is also some support for this categorization in different legal sources.

I am writing a case note on the case and became curious how the categorization is made in other jurisdictions. Is it a property damage or an economic loss if I destroy your cash (in your jurisdictions)?

(I know that the notion of "pure economic loss" is understood in different ways in different countries.)

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