Jagiellonian University in Krakow

English abstract: This article is intended as a systematic, quantitative study of the occurrence of emotion-related terms in the discourse of Polish case law on personal injury. My purpose is to show the scale (prevalence) and range (variety) of references to terms related to feelings and affect in the decisions of Polish courts, and to compare this data with rudimentary psychological nomenclature. I am interested not only in how often Polish courts refer to affective phenomena in general, but also how they distinguish various kinds of emotions and, to some extent, what role they assign to them in their reasoning about personal injury. This data is placed in the context of basic psychological models. This is supplemented by preliminary remarks on what roles most notable emotions fulfill, aiming at creating a rudimentary taxonomy of emotions in Polish case law on personal injury. In this way the study aims to answer the questions whether Polish courts notice emotions while adjudicating on non-pecuniary harm, what range of emotions they refer to, and how this data shows the perceived function of affect-related terms in case law. In short, the aim of this article may be described as drawing up a tentative “map” of the affective legal terrain, as well as a taxonomy of functions that emotions may play in personal injury law.

Keywords: Law and Emotion, civil law, emotions, tort law, Polish law, non-pecuniary harm, damages.

Language: English

Published: nr 2(39) 2024, pp. 59-80.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2024.2.59

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This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Jesuit University Ignatianum in Cracow

English abstract: Hindsight bias is one of the cognitive biases, which are biases that people make systematically and predictably. The essence of this bias is inability to correctly evaluate the probability of past events. Our tendency to overestimate it can lead to disturbing consequences in legal proceedings where such activities are on the agenda. In our analysis we will focus on assessing how the hindsight bias affects the way in which judges determine guilt in civil proceedings. Moreover, we will try to identify the consequences of moral, economic and legal aspects of theoretical analyzed cognitive error.

Keywords: hindsight bias, cognitive bias, liability for damages, cognitive psychology, civil law, legal philosophy

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(11)/2015, p. 131-141.

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Number of downloads: 460