Brussels, 22/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - In its judgment in Case C-495/10, delivered on 21 December, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that the liability of service providers - in this case a public healthcare establishment - which use defective products which they themselves have not produced does not fall within the scope of the Product Liability Directive (87/374/EEC).
This directive, the Court says, covers only the liability of the producers or, if the producer cannot be identified, that of the importer or supplier of the defective product. It does not seek exhaustively to harmonise the sphere of liability for defective products beyond its own area of application. It can, therefore, exist alongside a national regime that makes provision for a no-fault liability on the part of service providers, thereby enhancing consumer protection.
However, the application of national rules may not impair the effectiveness of the directive. Thus, it must remain possible for the producer's liability to be put in issue when the conditions for such liability to exist are fulfilled. The service provider must therefore also be able to use a legal mechanism - such as that of bringing third-party proceedings as provided for by French legislation - allowing the producer's liability to be put in issue.
In the case at issue, Centre hospitalier universitaire (CHU) (University Hospital), Besançon (France) was ordered, under national rules, to pay compensation to a patient who had been burned by a heated mattress on which the temperature-control mechanism was defective. The hospital appealed to the Conseil d'Etat arguing that, under the terms of the directive, only the manufacturer of the mattress could be held liable. The Conseil d'Etat asked the Court whether the French rules on no-fault liability of public hospitals could exist alongside the system of producer liability established by the directive. (FG/transl.rt)