Data

Date:
23-03-2019
Country:
Paraguay
Number:
19
Court:
Tribunal de Apelación en lo Civil y Comercial de Asunción, Quinta Sala
Parties:
Sanatorio Ume v. Ministerio de Salud Pública y Bienestar Social

Keywords

SERVICE CONTRACT - BETWEEN A PARAGUAYAN HOSPITAL (CLAIMANT) AND THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE OF PARAGUAY (RESPONDENT) – REFERENCE TO UNIDROIT PRINCIPLES TO INTERPRET AND SUPPLEMENT APPLICABLE DOMESTIC LAW (PARAGUAYAN LAW)

CONTRACT FOR MEDICAL SERVICES – REQUEST FOR PAYMENT OF SERVICES NOT AGREED UPON BETWEEN PARTIES – NOTION OF NON-PERFORMANCE – REFERENCE TO ART. 7.1.1 UNIDROIT PRINCIPLES

Abstract

In the case at hand Claimant filed a civil lawsuit against Respondent requesting payment for medical services rendered.
The First Instance Judge ruled in favor of Claimant, ordering Respondent to make the payment requested by Claimant.
On appeal Respondent argued that the contractually agreed upon payments had duly be made and that the additional amounts requested by Claimant related to services rendered by Claimant without without the consent of Respondent.On its part Claimant insisted that the the payments were due because it had rendered the services in good faith for the benefit of peeple in need.
The Court of Appeals, noting that the validity of the main service contract was never questioned by the parties, held that the only issue at stake was whether that contract was duly performed by Respondent or not. Since the national legislation refers to the notion of non-performance yet fails to define it, the Court referred to Article 7.1.1 of the UNIDROIT Principles which states that “non-performance is failure by a party to perform any of its obligations under the contract, including defective performance or late performance”. On the basis of this definition the Court concluded that there was no non-performance by Respondent because the additional services provided by Claimant did not fall within the scope of the main contract. Therefore the Court unanimously decided that Claimant´s request for payment was not justified and revoked the ruling of the First Instance Judge.

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