Short answer. Yes. Article 1569 of the Civil Code lets you claim damages from the seller, on top of the adjusted refund of the price, if the seller acted in bad faith, such as knowing about the hidden defect and concealing it, even though the thing was later destroyed by accident or your own fault.
What the law says
If the vendor acted in bad faith, he shall pay damages to the vendee.
Civil Code, Article 1569 — Loss by Fortuitous Event After a Defect. Read the full provision →
The baseline remedy, and what bad faith adds to it
Article 1569 first gives a buyer whose defective item was later lost the right to demand the price paid, less the item's value when it was lost. But the article does not stop there: it adds that if the vendor acted in bad faith, he shall pay damages to the vendee. This means the seller's own state of mind, knowing about the defect and choosing to hide it, exposes him to a further, separate claim beyond simply returning an adjusted portion of the price you paid.
Why knowledge and concealment matter here
Bad faith in this context generally involves knowing about the hidden fault at the time of the sale and failing to disclose it to the buyer. A seller who was genuinely unaware of the defect stands in a different position under this article than one who knew and stayed silent. It is this knowing concealment that the additional damages remedy under Article 1569 responds to, treating it as more than an ordinary failure to detect a defect that even a careful seller might have missed at the time.
What damages under this article can look like
Article 1569 does not itself spell out a fixed formula for these damages, unlike the specific price-and-deduction calculation it provides for the basic refund. This damages claim is meant to address the additional harm caused by the seller's bad faith, on top of the baseline remedy already available. What can actually be recovered as damages depends on what losses you can show flowed from the seller's bad faith, in addition to the adjusted refund of the price you already paid for the thing.
What you would need to prove
Claiming this additional remedy requires showing more than that the item had a hidden defect; you need to establish that the seller actually knew about the fault, or was otherwise in bad faith, at the time of the sale. This is a higher bar than simply proving the defect existed, since it involves the seller's own knowledge and conduct rather than just the condition of the thing sold, and it is what separates a bad faith seller's exposure to damages from the more limited refund available otherwise.