Defective car, supplier liable as manufacturer when it appears as such to the customer

If a product is defective, the supplier may also be held liable as if it were the producer, when it appears as such to the consumer. This, in short, is the conclusion of a court case on which the EU Court has also expressed its opinion, emphasising an extension of manufacturer liability to the supplier, and which has seen consumer protection strengthened in the case of the purchase of defective cars.

With sentence 32673, filed yesterday, the Supreme Court not only rejected the appeal of a well-known American car manufacturer with production plants in Germany, but also clarified that compensation for the damage suffered - in the case analysed, it was the failure of the airbag - can be requested directly from the supplier of the car if the latter appeared to the consumer/purchaser as the manufacturer. The situation, rather peculiar but not so unusual in the field of car sales, occurs when the name of the person who supplies/sells the car or a distinctive element coincides with that of the person who actually manufactures the vehicle.

The legal proceedings began when a consumer had sued the supplier of his car on the basis that, due to the partial coincidence of the name, he was the manufacturer of the vehicle. The supplier had defended itself by claiming that it was only a supplier and that the actual manufacturer would be liable for the manufacturing defect. The Court of First Instance, however, upheld the consumer's claim, declaring the extracontractual liability of the company for the manufacturing defect of the airbag.

After the passage to the second instance, it came to request the intervention of the Court of Justice of the European Union. In particular, the Court of Cassation asked the EU Court whether it is in accordance with directive 85/374/EEC to interpret that extends the producer's liability to the supplier, even if the latter has not materially affixed its name, trade mark or other distinctive sign to the goods, merely because the supplier has a name, trade mark or other distinctive sign that is wholly or partly identical to that of the producer.

The answer, in short, is yes. In the judgment C-157/23 (Ford Italy), the European Courts held that Article 3(1) of Directive 85/374/EEC must be interpreted as meaning that "the supplier of a defective product is to be regarded as a 'person purporting to be the producer' of that product within the meaning of that provision, where that supplier has not physically affixed his name, trade mark or other distinguishing feature to that product, but the trade mark which the producer has affixed to it coincides, first, with the name of that supplier or with a distinguishing feature of that supplier and, second, with the name of the producer'.