Planned disregard in consumer relations: a proposition to redress consumers’ lost time

Abstract

Time exerts multiple influences on consumer relations since it is a triggering factor for several legal obligations, especially in long-term contractual bounds. The valuation of time as an essential and limited resource has emerged in the context of post-modernity with the formation of a new consciousness about the effects that its passage exerts on people. In Brazil, especially since 2009, several judicial decisions recognized the time lost by consumers trying to solve conflicts with suppliers as a special kind of moral damage and guaranteed the right to redress. However, many other consumers in similar situations had the same right denied in Courts, mostly due to the lack of criteria for compensation the time lost due to acts attributable to suppliers. In this context, the research proposes a double criterion to identify the suppliers misconduct that may cause this special kind of damage and to pursue the adequate compensation for the time lost by consumers. The study makes a distinction of consumer’s time and supplier’s time and defines the commercial practice entitled “planned disregard” as the abusive devaluation of the time and the efforts invested by consumers to achieve a successful conclusion to consumer contracts, breaking the legal balance that the law establishes in consumer relations. Finally, it suggests how the members of the national consumer protection system, such as the regulatory agencies, civil entities, and the Judiciary may contribute with structural processes to the prevention of undue loss of consumer time.