Careless Behaviour of Injured Party Not Liable for Compensation

When an injury has been verified, what must be asked is whether or not the injured party has behaved recklessly, and whether or not his attitude may have been related to the event.

More specifically, with regard to “liability from things in custody”, the causal link between the accident and the res is broken if the comportment of the person claiming to have been injured by “things in custody” was one of the reasons why the injury occurred.

Summing up, when the potential danger could have been clearly foreseen and, consequently avoided by means of a cautious attitude by the injured party, the right to compensation for the injury must be considered as excluded.

For this reason the judges of the Italian Supreme Court with order n. 21675 of 20 July 2023 established that the client of a spa center who slipped and fell while walking barefoot on the edge of the pool is not liable to any compensation for injury. Reckless behavior was deemed to have broken the causal link between liability from things in custudy and the harmful event.