Error as A Legal Fact in Civil Law

Abstract

The article is devoted to understanding the error as a legal fact. It is concluded that the explanation of the mechanism of action of this legal fact lies not in the sphere of efficiency of civil turnover, but in the plane of the main principles of Russian civil legislation. A transaction made under the influence of delusion contradicts the principle of freedom of contract, if it is applied not only to bilateral, but also to unilateral transactions (by analogy). The interference of factors that caused the error prevents the subject of law from properly exercising its interests and, thus, violates the principle of civil law, such as acting with one’s own will and in one’s own interest. The essence of an error as a legal fact is directly derived from the conceptual model of civil legal personality, which assumes the image of a participant in civil legal relations as a rationally thinking subject, and the transaction-not only as a volitional and behavioral act, but as a kind of intellectual and cognitive activity; on this basis, it is tacitly assumed that the admitted distortions of the cognitive nature a priori can not lead to legally benign results.