Is concealment of biological fatherhood a compensable damage?

Abstract

Since the judgments of the Supreme Court 687/1999, of 22 July 1999, and 701/1999, of 30 July 1999, the debate on the possibility of compensating moral damages derived from the concealment of biological fatherhood was opened. For a long time, the basis of non-contractual liability in the sphere of family relations has been the breach of the duty of fidelity, a circumstance that does not conform to the principles of current family law nor to the eminently compensatory function of our tort law, institutions on which the object of the present study is based and which are set out beforehand. From that point, it is necessary to analyse the disparity of jurisprudential and doctrinal positions in favour and against the recognition of damages for concealment of biological fatherhood, as well as to reconsider the approaches of the Supreme Court, in order to answer the question of whether the concealment of biological fatherhood constitutes a compensable non-pecuniary damage.