Background
Lucas Masullo Soares was declared unfit after sitting a psychological evaluation administered by CEBRASPE (Brazil’s leading public-examination body) as one of the mandatory phases of the Federal Highway Police (Policial Rodoviário Federal) competitive examination governed by Notice No. 1/2021. He filed an ordinary action against CEBRASPE and the Federal Union seeking annulment of that result, a retesting under objective and non-secret criteria, and the right to continue in the remaining examination phases. Both the trial court and the First Region Federal Regional Court (TRF-1) ruled in his favor, finding that the psychological evaluation employed impermissibly subjective criteria in violation of the constitutional guarantees of due process and the right of reply (art. 5º, LV, of the Federal Constitution). In the course of those proceedings, the TRF-1 also held that the annual salary of the contested position — R$ 118,798.56 — was the correct benchmark for calculating the “value of the cause” (valor da causa), applying art. 292, § 2º of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC).
CEBRASPE filed a special appeal to the STJ contesting that procedural ruling. It argued that the lawsuit targets only the legality of a single examination phase, not the candidate’s appointment or future salary. Because a judgment in the plaintiff’s favor would not automatically entitle him to the position — he would still have to pass the remaining phases — CEBRASPE contended there is no immediately measurable economic benefit, and that art. 292, § 2º therefore should not apply. In its view, the cause value should be set at a nominal fiscal amount, as other TRF-1 panels have held in analogous cases. The Federal Public Ministry opined in favor of admitting the appeal for treatment as a repetitive-appeal leading case.
The TRF-1’s own case-management unit (NUGEP) had already identified 201 related proceedings within that court alone, selecting 27 as representative, before forwarding the matter to the STJ — a finding that underscored the nationwide scope of the divergence.
The Court’s Holding
The First Section of the STJ, sitting en banc, voted unanimously to designate REsp 2253059 as a leading case (recurso representativo de controvérsia) under the repetitive-appeals procedure (arts. 1.036 et seq. of the CPC and art. 257-C of the STJ’s Internal Rules). The court formally delimited the binding question to be resolved: “To define whether, in lawsuits that discuss only the regularity of a phase of a public competitive examination, without immediate economic benefit, the criterion of art. 292, § 2º of the CPC applies or does not apply for fixing the value of the cause.” Simultaneously, and also unanimously, it ordered the suspension of all special appeals and interlocutory appeals involving the same question, whether pending before second-instance courts nationwide or already before the STJ itself.
The decision is purely procedural at this stage: the Section has not yet resolved the substantive question. It has, however, confirmed that the issue meets the threshold requirements for the repetitive-appeals mechanism — multitudinous occurrence, clear national divergence, and the absence of a binding STJ precedent. Once the merits are decided, the resulting holding will bind all lower courts in Brazil under art. 927 of the CPC.
The underlying divergence the STJ must resolve is straightforward: one line of authority holds that phase-only exam challenges carry an immediately assessable economic value equal to twelve months of the disputed salary, justifying application of art. 292, § 2º; the competing line holds that, because the plaintiff has no guaranteed entitlement to appointment even if successful, the action is purely procedural in nature and should carry only a nominal fiscal cause value.
Key Takeaways
- The STJ’s First Section has formally designated REsp 2253059 as a binding repetitive-appeal precedent (tema repetitivo) on the sole question of how to calculate the “value of the cause” when a plaintiff challenges only a single phase of a public competitive examination without seeking immediate monetary relief.
- All special appeals and interlocutory appeals raising the same issue are now suspended nationwide pending the STJ’s definitive ruling — a stay that directly affects hundreds of cases.
- The core dispute is whether art. 292, § 2º CPC — which pegs the cause value to twelve months of the relevant remuneration — applies where the plaintiff’s claim is limited to invalidating one exam phase and does not guarantee appointment or salary.
- The underlying case concerns CEBRASPE’s use of subjective psychological criteria in a Federal Highway Police examination, a practice the TRF-1 found unconstitutional; that merits ruling is not affected by the STJ’s procedural designation.
Why It Matters
The “value of the cause” in Brazilian civil procedure is not a formality: it governs court filing fees, proportional attorneys’ fees, and certain jurisdictional thresholds. When courts apply art. 292, § 2º to phase-only exam challenges and anchor the cause value to the annual salary of a coveted federal position, litigation costs rise sharply for individual candidates — who are often law students or early-career professionals — as well as for examination-administering bodies. A definitive STJ ruling holding that the provision does not apply could significantly reduce barriers to challenging unlawful exam-phase eliminations, while a ruling in CEBRASPE’s favor would confirm the higher-cost model and likely deter marginal claims.
The practical reach extends well beyond the Federal Highway Police. Psychological evaluations, physical fitness tests, and other non-merit screening phases are routinely challenged across Brazil’s vast public-sector hiring system, which draws hundreds of thousands of candidates annually. A uniform national standard on cause valuation will eliminate the existing circuit split, reduce forum-shopping, and provide greater procedural predictability for candidates, examination bodies, and the public agencies that sponsor the competitions.