The Court ruled on a case concerning a man’s request for compensation from the owner of a dog who, by hitting him, made him fall and broke his leg. The injured party had called the dog over to offer him some cookies. This circumstance, according to the Court, contributed to causing a reaction of excessive exuberance of the dog, manifested “in the race towards the object of desire, in order to recover it and express one’s gratitude, which caused the collision”. The dog’s manifestation of affection, according to the judge, can also occur in a disproportionate and unpredictable way. Therefore the injury is charged exclusively to the injured person as “he himself initiated the etiological process from which the accident derived”, considering that the responsibility of the dog owner pursuant to art. 2052 of the Italian Civil Code it cannot be extended to include the voluntary acts put in place by the injured party. The sentence follows: Court of Milan, section Civil X, sentence of 5 June 2017, n. 6345

The Supreme Court has quantified the compensation for damage caused by work stress and its great responsibility.

The work activity is often a source of considerable stress for the employee, who can sometimes feel pervaded by a state of anxiety, frustration, irritability, the bad feeling of not being up to expectations. The consequences of “work stress” can be very damaging.

How does the law protect the stressed worker?
Is it possible to take legal action, asking for and obtaining compensation for service reasons from the employer?
When can work-related stress be considered an occupational disease?
When can work rhythms cause chronic illness?

Let’s answer these questions.

Sometimes the stress can be so intense as to cause a real chronic disease, with symptoms that do not resolve and do not improve over time and with which the worker is forced to live. Stress, from which chronic illness arises, can derive from a disproportionate burden of responsibility, from an inadequate planning of the various company activities, from a working environment characterized by the presence of reproaches and psychological pressures, where conflict reigns supreme not only among the colleagues but also between them and the boss.

What are the obligations of the employer?

According to the law [Art. 2087 of the Civil Code], the entrepreneur is required to take all the necessary measures to protect the physical integrity and moral personality of the workers, according to the particularity of the work, experience and technique. But what do these measures consist of? The Cassation [Cassation, sent. n. 5491 of 2 May 2000.] specified that the employer’s obligation is not limited exclusively to compliance with the legislation on prevention, but also extends to the prohibition of engaging in behavior that damages the psycho-physical integrity of the worker inside the company.

Damage from psycho-physical wear

The Supreme Court has expressed itself, on more than one occasion, on the so-called damage from psycho-physical wear caused by work. The orientation that prevails among the judges of the Supreme Court is to consider it “non-pecuniary damage”, compensable under the law [Art. 2059 of the Civil Code]. This damage must be compensated when the employer has failed to take all necessary precautions to ensure the physical and moral integrity of employees.

Stressful Work Damage: Who Should Experience It?

It is the worker who must prove the violation of contractual obligations to protect psycho-physical integrity as well as the causal link between work stress and the onset of chronic illness [Cass., Sent. n. 10527 of May 13, 2011; Cass., Sent. n. 13614 of 21 June 2011.]. The worker can rely on simple presumptions. The latter, as established by the legislator [Art. 2729 of the Civil Code], are those left to the prudence of the judge. In order for the simple presumption to be recognized as having legal value, the elements taken into consideration by the worker must be serious, precise and consistent: that is, they must be able to show the existence of the unknown fact as a reasonably probable consequence of the known fact, based on to rules of experience [Cf. Cass., Sent. n. 1185 of 18 January 2017; Cass., Sent. n. 14115 of 20 June 2006]. The employer’s burden is to provide evidence to the contrary, which cannot consist in the mere concurrence of the employee’s fault: it must be shown that the employee has engaged in malicious behavior or has generated a particular risk due to the performance of an activity that is not falling within the work duties or going beyond them.
The recent sentence of the Supreme Court

The sentence [Cass., Sent. n. 24361 of 16 October 2017.] with which the Court of Cassation recognized the right to compensation for reasons of service to the worker who had been diagnosed with severe coronary heart failure. The employee had been given the task of representing his own public company in court and this had generated in him a strong state of stress. But what prompted the judges of the Supreme Court to recognize the cause-and-effect relationship between the frenetic work carried out and the onset of the disease? The absence of other causes plausibly capable of causing this serious decompensation: the worker, in fact, was only thirty-six years old (too young to suffer from the disease in question!) family there was no history of heart disease. In these cases the worker is provided with protection from compulsory labor insurance, by Inail and by the company where he works.

Source:La legge per tutti

The cassation confirms the address already expressed several times according to which the motorway manager is responsible pursuant to art. 2051 of the Italian Civil Code for the facts that happen to the users, since in the head of it is recognizable the power of custody of the thing, which also extends to its pertinences.

In the event that a wild animal jumps the fence and it therefore remains intact, the keeper is still responsible as it is evident that the protection provided has proved insufficient to avoid the danger.

Thus the Judges of Palazzaccio: “In function of the interruption of the causal link between the harmful event and the thing in custody, the trial judge could not instead evaluate the circumstance relating to the integrity of the fence in the motorway section affected by the accident, both because this circumstance, in the specific case, had not prevented the thing from carrying out its harmful potential in any case, and because it, far from being a fortuitous event, rather confirmed that the damage had not been determined by an unforeseeable and inevitable external factor suitable for overcoming the presumption of responsibility of the custodian, but it was rather the consequence of the ineffective exercise, on his part, of the supervisory powers of the thing. “

Here is the sentence:

Roma, Camera di Consiglio, della Sez. III Civile, Sentenza del 22 marzo 2017

The warning sent by the lawyer or body of extrajudicial competence to the insurance following the mandate received by the minor injured following a road accident is valid..

If a minor has suffered injuries following a road accident, it is lawful that he / she will have to request compensation for the damage from the insurance.

The latter does not need to be authorized by the parents in the appointment of a lawyer or out-of-court consultant, but can delegate the mandate to a competent figure chosen by himself even if he is a minor.

This is what has been clarified by the Supreme Court with a recent order [Cass. ord. n. 24077/17 del 13.10.2017].

In other words, according to the Court, in the event of a road accident, the minor can delegate a competent figure for compensation.

The formal notice for compensation for damage advanced by the lawyer or out-of-court consultant to the insurance under the mandate given by the minor is valid. Even if he has not yet turned 18, in fact, he has the ability to carry out legal acts in the strict sense as long as they do not cause him harm.

According to the ruling in question, “on the subject of compulsory insurance of civil liability for road traffic, the claim for compensation of the injured party to the injurer’s insurer, by registered letter, as a condition for the admissibility of the compensation action against the insurer [Ex art. 22, l. n. 990/69] integrates a legal act in the strict sense and not a negotiation act “.

All those acts that involve the loss of a right or the assumption of an obligation are precluded to the minor. Given that the request for compensation does not derive for the least adverse effects, since it is aimed at the purchase and safeguarding of the right to compensation for damages from motor vehicle liability, the latter will certainly be able to confer a mandate on a lawyer. The minor is capable of carrying out juridical acts in the strict sense and therefore acts that constitute the presupposition of certain juridical effects connected to them by the law, for their fulfillment as the ability to act is not required.