Country:

Italy

Court:

Trib. Milano 23-3-1996, I contratti, 1996, 374.

Topics:

Joint and several liability of the manufacturer and the installer of the product; mom-material damage.

Articles:

art. 5; art. 9.

Facts:

A bunk bed collapsed the first night after its installation, seriously injuring the young person who was sleeping below. The victim claimed compensation for physical injuries from the seller who installed it without remarking the defective installation's instruction. The seller assumed that the liability was of the manufacturer and sued him in the same legal action.

Legal questions:

Is there joint and several liability between the product manufacturer and its installer?

Decisions:

The Tribunal held liable the manufacturer under the product liability law and the installer under the contract law and consequently asserted that there was a joint and several liabilities for the injury that occurred. Therefore it condemned both to compensate the physical injuries (L. 36.500.000 for two years of temporary infirmity and L. 285.000.000 for 50% of permanent infirmity), the loss of chance of work (L. 168.030.000) and also the non-material damage (L. 150.000.000).

Comments:

The Tribunal used the art. 9 of the Italian law, which explicitly allows the manufacturer to share his liability with any other person who has been found liable for the same injury. It does not matter if, like in that case, the manufacturer is held liable under the product liability law and the other person under the contractual law, because Italian legal system allows the non-concurrence of contractual liability and civil liability for the same injury. And it does not matter if the European directive allows the joint and several liability only among persons who have been held liable for the same injury "under the directive's provision", because the Italian law does not require this last boundary.

The tribunal allowed the compensation of the non-material assuming that the conduct of the defendants was in abstract relevant also under criminal law, without mentioning the question of the evidence of the agent fault.