Civil Liability Arising from Damage Caused by Products

Abstract

This paper intends to identify the main legal issues that regard the recognition of compensation for damages; if a product or any of its component parts are defective, its manufacturer may be liable for damage under the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) or the common law of negligence, caused by a wrongful act of another. The first part of the paper aims to give general information on the provisions of the Civil Code with respect to liability arising out of products. This institute is an additional guarantee for the protection of consumers, in addition to special legislation (for example: Law no. 9135, dated: 11.9.2003 "Consumer Protection") existing in this field. With the purpose of handling these cases the civil rights law has provided civil liability arising from products, in order to be clear and well-defined the responsibility of subjects that will be considered as such. Forecasting these provisions serves as a guarantee not only for the protection customers’ of health or property but also to increase the quality standards of marketing of products by manufacturers. In the second part we shortly treat the constituent elements of liability arising from products and investigating potential cases of wide occurrence, which have arisen from the doctrine to which we must say that, have been mostly of foreign origin. As part of the civil liability arising from the products are also the unfair competition actions (Art. 638-640 of the Civil Code) and fraudulent publications (Art. 635-637 of the Civil Code). These are addressed in a general way at the end of this paper and finally this paper closes with indemnification and the treatment of types of damages caused to consumers as a result of the faulty produced goods or by low quality services and the appropriate rewards for those damages.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s3p623