Abstract
The chapter illustrates the historical, judicial and juridical framework of personal injury assessment and compensation in Italy, describing the expert’s qualification and competences and detailing the ascertainment methodology and criteria of evaluation utilized for identifying, describing and estimating any personal injury, its temporary and permanent consequences and the causal value/link between the event and the injury and between the injury and the impairment/disability.
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Notes
- 1.
M. Gioia: “Dell’ingiuria dei danni, del soddisfacimento e delle relative basi di stima”. Lugano, 1821. Melchiorre Gioia (1767–1829) was a political writer and author of works of economics and statistics.
- 2.
Antonio Cazzaniga (1885–1973) was a full professor of Forensic Medicine, first in Messina and then in Milan, where he founded the Institute of Forensic Medicine. His doctrine about the compensation for the damage to the injured party in civil courts was developed in his treatise “Le basi medico-legali per la stima del danno alla persona da delitto o quasidelitto”. IES, Milano 1928.
- 3.
Article 2059 of the Civil Code (non-patrimonial damage): “the non-patrimonial damage must be compensated only in those case contemplated by law”.
- 4.
Cesare Gerin (1906–1996) is a professor of Forensic Medicine in Bari and then full professor of the same discipline in Rome. He exposed the theory of validity (originally his own) in “La valutazione medico-legale del danno alla persona in responsabilità civile”. Atti Giornate Medico-Legali Triestine, 1952. After his death the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Insurances of the Rome University was named after him.
- 5.
Article 32 of the Constitution: “The Republic protects health as a fundamental right of the individual and collective interest, and guarantees free care to the destitute…”.
- 6.
Article 2043 of the Civil Code (Compensation for an offence): “Any fraud or negligence causing an unjust damage to others forces the individual that has perpetrated the damage to compensate the damage”.
- 7.
Waiting for the definition of general character of biological damage and the criteria for the determination of the relative compensation, the current article defines, on an experimental basis, for the purposes of the protection of the mandatory insurance against the injuries on the job and occupational diseases, the biological damage as the “lesion to the psycho-physical integrity, susceptible of medico-legal ascertainment, of the individual … the impairments caused by the lesions of the psycho-physical integrity … are evaluated according to a specific impairment table, comprehensive of the dynamic-relational aspects”.
- 8.
The biological damage consists in the permanence of temporary impairment of the psychophysical integrity of the individual, comprehensive of the dynamic-relational aspects, susceptible of the medicolegal ascertainment and evaluation and independent from any reference to the capability to earn income. “The evaluation of the biological damage is expressed in terms of percentage of the impairment of the psychophysical integrity, comprehensive of the incidence on the activities common to everyone. If the impairment itself appreciably affects particular dynamic-relational and personal aspects, the evaluation is completed by further indications, to express in an exclusively descriptive form”.
- 9.
For instance, the 2013 table of the Court of Milan calls for—in the case of a 30-year-old—a basic compensation of about 23,000 € for a 10 % damage (point value about 2300 €) and about 73,000 € for a 20 % damage (point value about 3650 €).
- 10.
To remedy such disparity, the Civil Court of Appeal, section III, with sentence 12408 of 7 June 2011 had adopted as a standard the tables elaborated by the Observatory of Civil Justice of the Tribunal of Milan.
- 11.
A commentary is in any case available a guide with comments to the tables referenced in the DM 3 July 2003 (1–9 %) as well to the work of the Commissione ex DM 26 May 2004 (10–100 %), which is commonly used in the forensic evaluation of the biological damage, even for accidents non deriving from road traffic.
- 12.
Cass. Civ nn 7281/2003, 7282/2003, 7283/2003, 8827/2003, 8828/2003; Corte Cost 233/2003.
- 13.
Thus Cass. Sez Unite no. 6572/2006: “each prejudice of not merely and interior nature, but objectively ascertainable, that alters the customs and the relational assets, inducing different choices of life as well as the expression and realization of one’s personality in the outside world”.
- 14.
Cass. Sez. Unite nn. 26972/2008-26973/2008-26974-26975/2008.
- 15.
The so-called Balduzzi Law (no. 189, November 8, 2012) seems to represent a step in the right direction, as its article 3/comma 4 stipulates that “the expert consultant registers … must be updated at least every 5 years in order to guarantee a suitably qualified, representative pool of experts, not only in forensic medicine, but also in other specialized fields of healthcare, including the involvement of scientific associations from which to choose appointments, bearing in mind the specific field in question”.
- 16.
Translator’s note: The term “biological damages” (danno biologico) is unique to Italian jurisprudence and includes any and all damages consequent to the compromised health of the victim, independently from possible repercussions on his capability to produce income.
- 17.
Law 27/102, article 32 /par. 3, subparagraphs 3 and 4, states: 3-Subpar. 3—The following is to be added to paragraph 2 of article 139 of the Civil Code regarding private insurance: “In any case, injuries of modest entity that are not verifiable by objective instrumental clinical exam cannot be cause for compensation for permanent biological damage”. 3-Subpar. 4: “Personal damages for injuries of modest entity, per article 139 of the legislative decree no. 209 of September 7, 2005, are to be indemnified solely subsequent to medico-legal checks that furnish visual or instrumental verification of the existence of the injury”.
- 18.
The legal issue posed by the Milan Court after passage of law 27/2012.
- 19.
Sezioni Unite della Corte di Cassazione no. 581 Jan. 11, 2008
- 20.
Actually, a proportional liability approach has been proposed for evaluating biological damage of a psychic nature. Such approach calls for establishing the quantum by multiplying the ascertained percentage of biological damage by a numerical coefficient that measures the injurious effects of the psychic trauma that caused the damage.
- 21.
It is worth noting that according to the view by which the economic value of the percentage invalidity grows in a more-than-proportional manner with respect to the percentage biological damage, a differential damage of 85–28 % would command greater compensation than a 57 % damage with no pre-existing disability. Considering, for instance, a 40-year-old male, according to the monetary tables used at the Court of Milan, biological damage of 57 % would call for compensation of about 476,000 €, whilst a differential biological damage of 85–28 % would be compensated with about 681,000 € (810,000–129,000 €).
- 22.
This example has been drawn from the “application criteria” of the table of disabilities from 10 to 100 % prepared by the Ministerial Committee per the Ministerial decree of May 26, 2004 (which has yet to be put into effect).
- 23.
The consequences of the choice are not negligible in economic terms. Using the same monetary tables, modest biological damage of 4 % would lead to indemnification of about 5500 €, whilst differential damage of a single percentage point (86–85 %) would call for compensation of 11,000 €.
- 24.
Still using the same monetary tables, the difference between 100 and 85 % would correspond to about 154,000 €. Total bilateral complete (50 %) with no pre-existing condition would be indemnified with about 373,000 €, Thus, the sighted person that would receive more than double than what the blind one would clearly highlights the unfairness of the method. In fact, the interaction between blindness and deafness increases the damage with respect to the average table values.
- 25.
Consider art 138, par. 2/2 of the previously cited Legislative Decree 209/2005: “temporary biological damage of less than 100 % is determined in a measure corresponding to the percentage inability per each day”.
- 26.
Article 3, paragraph 3 of the Balduzzi law (see below) stipulates that biological damage consequent to the activities of health professionals be indemnified on the basis of these same tables.
- 27.
The commonly accepted reference (albeit not free of criticisms) is the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”, Fifth ed, abbreviated as DSM5.
- 28.
The Milan School, for example, has proposed a scale of 1–5 based on five different parameters.
- 29.
Appropriateness may be qualified as the appraisal of a clear proportionality between the injury/impairment and the type and scheduling of the clinical investigation performed and the treatments prescribed.
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Domenici, R. (2016). Methods of Ascertainment of Personal Damage in Italy. In: Ferrara, S., Boscolo-Berto, R., Viel, G. (eds) Personal Injury and Damage Ascertainment under Civil Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29812-2_8
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