Short answer. Yes. Damages may be recovered for loss or impairment of earning capacity in cases of temporary or permanent personal injury, so months out of work are claimable. The Code also allows recovery for injury to business standing or commercial credit. Each has to be proved rather than estimated.

What the law says

Damages may be recovered: (1) For loss or impairment of earning capacity in cases of temporary or permanent personal injury; (2) For injury to the plaintiff's business standing or commercial credit.

Civil Code, Article 2205 — Loss of Earning Capacity and Business Standing. Read the full provision →

What the law says

Except as provided by law or by stipulation, one is entitled to an adequate compensation only for such pecuniary loss suffered by him as he has duly proved.

Civil Code, Article 2199 — Actual Damages Must Be Proved. Read the full provision →

Temporary loss counts, not only permanent injury

The article is explicit on the point people doubt: damages may be recovered: (1) For loss or impairment of earning capacity in cases of temporary or permanent personal injury; (2) For injury to the plaintiff's business standing or commercial credit. A recovery that took four months and ended in a full return to work is squarely within it. Note also the word impairment alongside loss. Someone who returns to the same job at reduced capacity, or who can no longer do the work that actually paid, has suffered something the provision recognises.

Earning capacity is not the same as wages missed

The provision speaks of earning capacity rather than salary, which matters to everyone whose income does not arrive as a payslip. A market vendor, a driver, a freelancer and a small contractor all have earning capacity, and its impairment is compensable. The consequence is that the claim is built from whatever honestly evidences what the person earned before and could earn after — records of takings, invoices, contracts, income tax returns, bank credits, and the account of people who worked alongside them. Article 2200 adds that indemnification comprehends not only the loss suffered but the profits the injured party failed to obtain.

Proof is the whole battle

Article 2199 sets the standard for this kind of damage: except as provided by law or by stipulation, one is entitled to an adequate compensation only for such pecuniary loss suffered by him as he has duly proved. Duly proved is doing the work. A round figure asserted in a demand letter, unsupported by anything, is the commonest reason a lost-income claim is cut down to a fraction of what was real. The medical side matters here too, because the period of incapacity has to be tied to the injury by something better than the claimant's own account.

The neighbouring provisions worth knowing

Where the injury caused death, Article 2206 makes the defendant liable for the loss of the earning capacity of the deceased, with the indemnity paid to the heirs. Article 2207 deals with insurance: an insurer that has indemnified the loss is subrogated to the insured's rights against the wrongdoer, so money received from a policy is not simply added to the claim. Between them these two decide who may claim the lost income and how much of it remains claimable, which is worth settling early rather than at the end.

Cases citing this provision

These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.