ECJ: A hospital can be held responsible for a defective product

摘要

EU law does not preclude a member state from establishing a regime laying out the liability of a service provider for damages caused by a defective product, even where it is not his fault. Such is the meaning of the 21 December EU Court of Justice ruling in a dispute on the responsibility of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU; university hospital) of Besancon, France, for damages to a patient relative to the use of a defective heated mattress (Case C 495/10). In March 2007, the French hospital was forced to compensate Thomas Dutrueux for burns caused during a procedure. The administrative court had then applied the case law of the French Conseil d'Etat, according to which a public hospital must compensate, even when it is not its fault, the damages caused to a patient due to a defective device used during treatment. The decision, according to the Besancon hospital, was in opposition with Directive 85/374/EEC on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the member states concerning liability for defective products.