Definition of fortuitous case - What it is, Meaning and Concept

The term case , whose etymological origin is in the Latin casus , refers to a issue , a event or a fact . Fortuitous , meanwhile, is something that happens casually, unexpectedly or randomly .

The idea of fortuitous case , in this context, is used with respect to that which occurs by chance .Many times the expression refers to to an event that causes damage and whose origin cannot be attributed to someone in particular.

In the field of law , a fortuitous event is an event that the individual generates involuntarily and, therefore, is not expected to fulfill certain obligations.fortuitous case occurs when an event makes it impossible to comply with an obligation, since that event could not be foreseen and, for that reason, could not be avoided.

In the scale of law, the fortuitous case happens to the case of force majeure , which is one that not only could not be foreseen, but also, if it had been foreseen, could not have been avoided.Even with these differences, both cases are usually treated in a manner similar by the law .

The fortuitous cases are unpredictable ; the cases of force majeure, unavoidable.It is often said that the fortuitous case is generated by a matter of internal order , while the case of force majeure comes from abroad.

Following this differentiation, the fortuitous case occurs because of something that was unknown for the individual, although it was part of the internal plane of his action .The case of force majeure , instead, is caused by an external event.

A mechanical failure in a car whose cause is unknown is a fortuitous case.A tornado that causes damage to a house, on the other hand, is a case of force majeure.

In the two examples presented in the previous paragraph one of the nuances in which the courts are based to solve cases where it is impossible to blame someone directly: although we cannot perceive it with the naked eye, a mechanical failure arises unfailingly for one or more errors (unforeseen at best) by the technicians involved in the manufacture and, later, the maintenance of the car; It is the consequence of the way in which someone carries out their activity at a given time.

For this reason, as the mechanical failure derives from the action of a person and not from the effects of a natural phenomenon , we can resolve that it is a fortuitous case.On the other end we find the case of the tornado that has left a house in ruins: if we apply what has been said so far, there is no doubt that it is a case of force majeure.

The backbone of the fortuitous case is constituted by a series of characteristics that help us distinguish it from others: it is unpredictable, unlike certain phenomena of nature; it is foreign to the debtor, so that he cannot have caused it voluntarily; it must arise after the cause of the obligation; it must harm the debtor directly; the debtor cannot fulfill the obligation .

As is often the case in this area, the characteristics of the concept are not identical in all countries, although in broad strokes we can recognize it in all the laws of the world.

If we focus on the laws of Nicaragua, for example, we find a point of view according to which the fortuitous case and the case of force majeure produce the same result although the former is intimately related to a series of events caused by the human being (although not generated directly but that arise as damage collateral), while the second arises as a result of the action of nature.