The 3rd Panel of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) recently ruled, in REsp 2.123.732/MT (2023/0357456-6), that the decision on a request for disregard of the legal personality (IDPJ) in an enforcement proceeding generates preclusion, preventing a new request from being made with the same justification.
The disregard of legal personality allows the private assets of partners to be held liable for debts and obligations that are originally the responsibility of the company, under the terms of article 50 of the Civil Code.
The Justices recognized that the decision that terminates the IDPJ has the legal nature of an interlocutory decision. Therefore, according to art. 507 of the Code of Civil Procedure (“CPC”), it generates preclusion, preventing a new IDPJ request from being made on the same grounds.
This is because preclusion means the loss of the right to discuss again, in the same action, something that has already been decided. Thus, even if it is a new incident, it does not have the power to dismiss it if it is based on the same cause of action.
Therefore, the initiation of a new IDPJ in the same enforcement action is conditional on the emergence of new facts capable of giving rise to a new cause of action and, consequently, ruling out preclusion.
Thus, we can conclude that the position adopted by the Justices represents a guarantee of legal certainty, providing greater stability and preventing new and successive requests for disregard of legal personality from being filed in cases in which there has already been a previous decision.
We are attentive to new developments in case law and discussions in all areas of the Judiciary, in order to provide adequate and effective advice to our clients.
