Apple of Discord: jurisdiction over civil liability for damages arising from control reports

Abstract

In 2023, the Supreme Court’s Plenary Session ruled that jurisdiction over claims for damages arising from control reports lies with the civil courts. This article aims to encourage readers to consider alternatives approaches to this matter, which may seem like established fact or a stare decisis rule. It also offers alternative perspectives, based on experience, that reinforce the idea of labor court jurisdiction. As Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., argued “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience” (Holmes, 1881, page 3). Through this research, the reader will find various situations that may arise in our practice regarding control reports, which can raise doubts about the civil court's jurisdiction in relation to claims for damages. The approach taken in the 2023 Plenary Agreement, favoring civil jurisdiction over labor jurisdiction, risks creating unfair situations for those involved. This is important because the courts represent the last vestige of reasonableness that accused individuals can find in the audit reports. The purpose of this article is to shed light on situations that, following the 2023 Plenary Agreement, appear imprecise, vague, general, or ambiguous, and to provide arguments that were not considered at that time in order to contribute the necessary details for a full understanding.

In order to achieve our objective, we will start from previous concepts such as the constitutional importance of the State structure in the analysis of the scope of control reports, the labor nature of public employment, the contractual link of service providers and the implications of the “alleged” administrative, criminal and/or civil responsibility of public servants indicated in the control reports.