Civil liability of the State for damages caused to parties by notaries and registrars: comments to Extraordinary Appeal 842.846

Abstract

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) has discussed the nature and extent of civil liability of the State for damages caused by delegates (notaries and registration officers) to parties in the exercise of their functions: direct or subsidiary, and, yet, whether objective or subjective. Finally, the thesis was as follows: “The State responds objectively to the acts of official registrar notaries who, in the exercise of their functions, cause damage to third parties, based on the obligation to return against the responsible in cases of fraud or guilty, under penalty of administrative impropriety”. In recognizing that the victim has the possibility of provoking the State to compensate citizens for errors of notary offices, the STF does not exclude the special legal regime assigned to extrajudicial services, according to art. 236 of the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil, which provides for subjective liability, but does not rule out state ownership of the activity, with the possibility of objective accountability, without assessing fraud or guilty. Thus, it provides the victim with the alternative of using one or both regimes in order to becompensated for the damages resulting from the activity, enshrined in the Celso Antônio Bandeira de Mello doctrine as a delegated legal activity, typical of the State.