Published on 17 June 2024
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 40209/23
Giorgio RIZZETTO and Others
against Italy
lodged on 6 November 2023
communicated on 29 May 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the right of the applicants, respectively parents and brother of R.M., to obtain compensation for the damages they allegedly suffered as a result of the death of their relative in a car accident. The claim for damages for the loss of the family member was upheld by the domestic jurisdictions; instead, the claim for biological damages was rejected on the ground that it was not duly substantiated. The applicants had attached the opinion of an expert acknowledging the biological damage for each of them. In the first two judgments, the expert’s opinion was considered insufficient to obtain a verification of the existence of damages by a Consultant of the Court; the Court of Cassation, on the other hand, specified that the opinion was sufficient but did not, in any case, ordered the verification by the Court’s Consultant, considering that the damage suffered was not serious enough to produce biological damage. The applicants complained of a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, alleging that their request for an expert report by a Court’s Consultant, deemed to be decisive for the purpose of proving the biological damage they suffered, was arbitrarily rejected.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicants have a fair hearing in the determination of their civil rights and obligations, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, was their proceeding as a whole fair (H. v. France, 24 October 1989, §§ 61 and 70, SeriesoA no. 162-A)?
2. Were the domestic courts’ decisions reasonable, namely in the light of the Court of Cassation’s disagreement as to the refusal, by the Court of appeal, of the expert report requested by the applicants and its finding that, nonetheless, no biological damage had occurred in the applicants’ case (see, mutatis mutandis, Hamzagić v. Croatia, no. 68437/13, §§ 57-58, 9 December 2021)?
3. Did the national courts satisfy their obligation to conduct a proper examination of the submissions, arguments and evidence adduced by the parties (Van de Hurk v. the Netherlands, 19 April 1994, § 59, Series A no. 288)?
APPENDIX
No.
Applicant’s Name
Year of birth
Nationality
Place of residence
1.
Giorgio RIZZETTO
1949
Italian
Portogruaro
2.
Susanna TONIOLO
1961
Italian
Portogruaro
3.
Massimiliano RIZZETTO
1981
Italian
Sesto Al Raghena