With ruling no. 18518/2024 of July 8, 2024, the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation formulated and reaffirmed the following important legal principle regarding the liability of Public Entities under Article 2051 of the Civil Code: “In matters of liability pursuant to Article 2051 of the Civil Code, the injured party bears the burden of proving only the derivation of the damage from the object and the entrusted management of the object by the alleged responsible party, not their own absence of fault in dealing with it.”
The Supreme Court, in assessing a ruling issued by the Court of Appeal of Salerno on the liability of the Public Administration for an accident due to poor road maintenance, established that, to obtain compensation from the Municipality, the injured party is not required to prove their own absence of fault but only to demonstrate the causal link between the damage suffered and the condition of the road.
This Supreme Court ruling essentially overturned the decision of the Court of Appeal of Salerno, which had rejected the claim for compensation made by the relatives of a motorcyclist who died after losing control of his vehicle due to a defect in the road surface, on the grounds that the plaintiffs had not provided proof of the victim’s diligent and prudent conduct at the time of the accident.
The Supreme Court of Cassation reminded that, according to Article 2051 of the Civil Code, the liability of the road managing entity is of an objective nature and the plaintiff is not required to prove the absence of fault of the injured party. It would rather be the responsibility of the public entity to bring evidence proving the negligent driving conduct of the accident victim.
Therefore, the plaintiff only has the burden of proving the causal link between the damage and the entrusted object (in the case at hand the road), while the Public Entity can only avoid being ordered to pay damages by demonstrating that the damage was caused by a fortuitous event or by the negligent conduct of third parties, which constitute the sole causes of the accident and thus effectively break the causal link between the damaging event and the entrusted object.