Punitive and fair forms of compensation for harm to health in the sources of law and the civil law doctrine of the Russian empire in the late 19th - early 20th century

Despite the fact that one of the most important tasks for the development of the institution of compensation for losses is recognized as a strict regulation of the conceptual base, in modern civil law, the issues of choosing forms and methods of compensation for harm to health remain without proper theoretical justification and consideration. Since the problems of applying civil law consequences of damage to a given intangible good are usually revealed exclusively in the context of applying the institution of compensation for moral damage, it is of particular interest to study the history of the development of general rules for the onset of tort liability for harm to health, as well as the first attempts to attract insurance compensation funds to protect the property interests of accident victims. Purpose: to study the doctrinal sources and norms of civil law of the Russian Empire of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, related to the development of traditional and alternative legal forms of compensation for harm to health, in order to identify approaches that are relevant in modern conditions. The specific tasks are to identify the problems of legal regulation of the relevant social relations, underlying theoretical approaches and individual significant opinions on the issues of the essence and legal nature of tort liability in its various modifications, as well as alternative legal remedies for harm to health. Methods: general philosophical (materialistic, dialectical), general scientific (logical, system-structural, axiological), specific scientific (formal-legal, historical-legal, systemic) research methods are used. Results: the author substantiates the existence in the sources of law and the civil law doctrine of the Russian Empire of the period under consideration of the prerequisites for an expanded interpretation of the construction of tort liability, where such liability is accompanied by the inclusion of a fair obligation to compensate for material losses of a certain activity. Legal tools to individual-ize the punitive function of such liability, unusual in the modern era, have been identified (restrictions preventing the transfer of material losses to persons who are not delinquents when they commit crimes, the possibility to cover the indirect consequences of an offense with reward in terms of intentional unlawful acts, etc.). The difference between punitive and fair forms of compensation for harm is presented as a system-forming problem of civil law, the solution of which remains today the methodological «key» to overcome gaps and contradictions in the legal regulation of tort obligations.