Effects of the nullity of verbal contracts in the public sector: restitutionary action or patrimonial liability. Is it possible to avoid the payment of the service rendered?
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The article argues that the action for pecuniary liability is not the appropriate action to claim for services actually rendered but not satisfied under null and void contracts. On the contrary, the article considers that the appropriate action is the action for restitution of services rendered. The article argues that the aim of the restitution action is to eliminate the legal effects produced and arising from the null contract and, therefore, it restores the economic rights of the parties to the situation they would have had if the contract had not taken place, and this regardless of the good or bad faith of the contracting parties. On the contrary, pecuniary liability compensates the damages that the contracting party, acting negligently or fraudulently, causes to the injured party. Thus, Articles 1305 and 1306 of the Civil Code, which regulate tortious or unlawful causation and limit the obligation to make restitution when one or both contracting parties are at fault, are not applicable in a supplementary manner to administrative law.