Municipalities and liabilities

The exclusion of liability of the Public Administration —Art. 2051 of the Italian Civil Code with regard to fortuity

The Court of Cassation, by order no. 16856 dated 24 June 2019, dealt with the issue relating to the Municipality’s liability as custodian of the road, excluding any charge of liability for the same if ice should form on the road during the night.

In particular, if alterations take place to road conditions that cannot be foreseen and said alterations, despite checks and diligence applied with the aim of guaranteeing a prompt intervention, cannot be removed or reported due to the shortage of time strictly necessary to proceed, these events are considered by the Court  as fortuitous.

A Municipality is therefore relieved of any liability if it demonstrates that the event was determined by extrinsic and extemporaneous causes created by third parties, not knowable or removable in the immediacy, even with diligent maintenance activity, or in the case of an objective situation that requires the danger factor to be classified as fortuitous, having already manifested its offensive potential before the repairing custodian entity could reasonably intervene.