In cases of non-existence of debt, settlement depends on a counterclaim

sailasathay

In an action declaring the absence of debt, it is not possible for the defendant to request that the plaintiff be ordered to pay the amount discussed in the case, plus interest and monetary correction, without the formulation of a counterclaim.


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Slaughterhouse could only be forced to pay the debt if the request was made by counterclaim
Reproduction/eptv
With this understanding, the 3rd panel of the superior court of justice partially granted the special appeal to remove the sentence imposed on a poultry slaughterhouse to settle a debt with a packaging company.

In this case, the slaughterhouse filed a lawsuit to declare the non-existence of a debt relating to the commercial duplicate extracted from the purchase and sale of packaging. The defendant WhatsApp Number List
company, without presenting a counterclaim, requested that the plaintiff be ordered to pay the debt, plus interest and monetary correction, from the maturity date of the title.

A counterclaim is the form provided for by the code of civil procedure for, when contesting an action, expressing one's own claim, as long as it is connected to the initial petition. It is provided for in article 343.

Rapporteur, minister nancy andrighi noted that, in the defense, the packaging company could not formulate a request that goes beyond the declaration of unfoundedness of the action without making use of the counterclaim.



This is because a sentence given outside the limits defined by the author in the initial petition, without the defendant having expanded the object of the dispute by one of the means permitted by law, will be extra petita (granting something different from the request and, therefore, vitiated).

"The opposing request is only admitted when there is a rule establishing the possibility of the defendant making a request against the author in his defense", explained minister nancy. If this is not a possibility, it will be necessary to use a counterclaim.

Thus, by accepting the counterclaim for payment of the debt in an action that merely sought to declare its non-existence, the ordinary courts violated article 343 of the code of civil procedure, which deals with counterclaims. The vote was unanimous.