Country:

Portugal

Court:

Case Decision from the Portuguese Supreme Court of Justice of the 25th of March 2010 (Case nº 5521/03.0TBALM.S1)

Facts:

A bought a door opener that did not come with instructions or safety regards.

Decision:

The Supreme Court of Justice reminded that, within product liability, «plaintiffs must prove the elements that grounds their request: damages, product deficiencies and causation». Furthermore, the Court considered that, because the proof of causation can be difficult, « the common sense rules, the id quo plerum que accidt and adequacy may lead to a preponderant rule.» In this case, since the door opener has been put into circulation for more than twenty years, and it was only placed out of the market due to its lack of commercial suitability regarding market trends, and regarding the amount of times that the plaintiff used it, the Court decided that no appropriate proof has been produced.

Ratio of the decision:

The plaintiff sued the defendant for product liability. The plaintiff requested an indemnity for the damaged he suffered and arose from a product that was put into circulation on the market, by the defendant. The plaintiff stated that the product had deficiencies regarding its information label. Concerning article 4º of the Decree-law nº 383/89, a product is considered to be deficient when it does not guarantee minimum security requirements, in all its forms, such as presentation or usage and the moment that it enters the market. The Court considered that the plaintiff did not prove, in trial, that the product had any sort of deficiency. In his allegations, the plaintiff stated that the door opener did not come with the appropriate instructions. Lack of instructions is also a way of deploying product liability. The Court adopted this position based on the studies of Calvão da Silva in this field. The scholar states that, despite the lack of deficiencies, a product cannot guarantee sufficient safety measures when its producer does not provide instructions for its usage, when it is placed in the market. This extends to information that must be provided regarding collateral damages that arise from treacherous use of the product. For this reason, the Court considered that the plaintiff did not prove the lack of information regarding the products instructions and that she contradicted herself in considering that the door opener was not a dangerous product. Likewise, she did not prove the causation link between the damages that she suffered and the lack of safety instructions of the product.