55 a) Pecuniary damage 221. The Court has developed the concept of pecuniary damage and the situations in which such compensation is required.171 222. The Commission asked the Court “to establish, in equity, the amount of compensation for consequential damages and loss of earnings,” and indicated that the representatives “are in a better position to quantify their claims” for compensation. 223. The representatives indicated that the State should compensate the victims for the consequential and patrimonial damage, and the loss of earnings suffered. Regarding consequential damages, they stated that Mr. Portugal’s family incurred expenses when trying to determine his whereabouts, including accommodation, food, telephone calls and transportation, together with the cost of Mr. Portugal’s burial and the expenses of the medical and psychological care they required as a result of the physical and psychological effects of the facts of this case. However, since the Portugal family has not kept the corresponding receipts, the representatives asked the Court to establish this sum in equity. Regarding patrimonial damage, the representatives requested the sum of US$57,800.00 (fifty-seven thousand eight hundred United States dollars) for the loss of earnings of Patria Portugal who, in August 2000, left her employment as manager of a construction firm “to devote herself to promoting the investigation of her father’s case.” Also, they asked the Court to order the State to pay the sum of US$171,000.00 (one hundred and seventy-one thousand United States dollars) for the sums that the family failed to receive as a result of the destruction by fire of their farm in the Province of Veraguas. Lastly, they asked for US$139,926.48 (one hundred and thirty-nine thousand nine hundred and twenty-six United States dollars and forty-eight cents) for Heliodoro Portugal’s loss of earnings. 224. The State argued that the damages alleged by the representatives lack any “factual basis and do not comply with the legal requirement that they be specific and authenticated.” 225. First, the Court considers it relevant to reiterate that the violations declared in this judgment refer to the forced disappearance of Heliodoro Portugal, and to the denial of justice and the effects on personal integrity suffered by his next of kin, as well as to the failure of the State to comply with its general obligations embodied in Articles 1(1) and 2 of the American Convention. 226. Even though the Court has declared that Heliodoro Portugal was forcibly disappeared, it should be stressed that the Court found that it did not have competence to address those facts and, consequently, the damage concerning Mr. Portugal that occurred before the date on which the State accepted the Court’s compulsory competence; that is, in 1990 (supra paras. 27, 28, 32 and 36). 227. In this section, the Court also considers it appropriate to analyze the State’s argument that some requests for reparation are not admissible “because they lack the petitioners’ legitimatio ad causam,” because they “do not constitute reparations based on the facts that occurred in relation to Heliodoro Portugal.” The Commission did not address this issue. The representatives indicated that the State’s answer “reflected a restrictive understanding of measures of reparation, reducing them merely to compensatory measures.” 171 Cf. Bámaca Velásquez v. Guatemala. Reparations and costs. Judgment of February 22, 2002. Series C No. 91, para. 43; Case of Yvon Neptune, supra note 24, para. 159, and Case of Kimel, supra note 61, para. 105.