The responsibilities of the motorway manager

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