Compensatory Damages Granted in Personal Injuries: Supplementing Islamic Jurisprudence with Elements of Common Law

Majed Alshaibani, Indiana University Maurer School of Law

Abstract

This dissertation discusses the types of compensatory damages, monetaryand non-monetary losses, granted in Saudi Arabian personal injury cases. Themain issue of this paper is to determine the missing types of monetary and nonmonetary losses when estimating compensation, thereby unjustly leaving injured parties without fair compensation. The problem of this study is that some victims do not get compensation for certain personal injuries claims, such as loss of wages, lost earning capacity, and emotional distress. This is due to many reasons. One of the most obvious reasons is the absence of clearly written personal injuries statutes that cover all types of damages and can be used as guidelines for judges.The absence of statutes leads judges to rely on their interpretation of Sharia principles in personal injuries cases. The second reason is the misunderstanding of Sharia principles among judges about compensating some types of personal injuries. The third reason concerns victims not being aware of their rights as well as the obstacles they face while pursuing their right of compensation.

This dissertation will examine the reasons behind the missing types of personal damages and present solutions by extracting and analyzing the elements of damages from Sharia principles along with United States common law. One of the main goals of this dissertation is to study the solutions by looking at the principles of Sharia related to personal injuries compensation for monetary losses or non-monetary losses and to fill in gaps for missing elements of personal injuries. Also, this dissertation will present the criticisms and obstacles for compensation in Saudi courts and eventually conclude by proposing workable changes and adjustments that can be made to Saudi laws governing compensation.