Ten years of application of the new concept of non-pecuniary damage

The author analyses the question whether and how the new concept of non-pecuniary damage in the Law on Obligations impacted on case-law in Croatia. Respectively, the consequences of this new concept in respect of a private protection of rights on personality are searched for. The special attention is devoted to the basic problems in defining non-pecuniary damage as well as the problems in the recognition of the right to monetary compensation in personal injuries cases in comparative law. The comparative analysis showed that due to a restrictive approach of the legislators, the key role in relation to the above issues had case-law and legal theory. There was a lot of criticism referred to the old legal definition of non-pecuniary damage within Croatian legal theory, but judicial practice had successfully overcame those imperfections. The comparison of the older case-law with the new one, ensued from the application of the new, objective concept of non-pecuniary damage, revealed that the new regulation, although the legislator set a good framework for it, has not significantly affected the compensations of such damage in practic