Cassation

In the five-star hotel she asks for a jug of water but they refuse and give her seven euro bottles. She sues but the Supreme Court agrees with the managers

No rule requires, unless otherwise agreed, to provide tap water. Stress damages, for paying 7 euros per bottle, must be proven

by Patrizia Maciocchi

27 May 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

No rule requires the hotelier to provide the customer, who asks for it, with tap water instead of mineral water in bottles. Unless there is an initial pact to that effect.The Supreme Court thus rejected the appeal, as did the judges on the merits, of a guest of a 5-star hotel who demanded the condemnation of the hoteliers to pay him EUR 2,763, as compensation for damage. And this because during her stay, from 26 December 2019 to 3 January 2020, "she had been incessantly denied the possibility of consuming drinking water from the tap, being forced, conversely, to buy bottled water at every meal". All this for the 'modest' sum of7 euro per bottle.

Stress over the high bill

The lady just did not like the conclusion of the judges, who had ruled out that the failure to provide tap water had been the "source of actualeconomic damage or emotional stress for the mere fact of having paid EUR 5,712.00 for a luxury stay"

For the defence, such reasoning would lead to the paradox that only by choosing a lower category hotel could one have the right to drink water.

"Assuming and not conceding," the defendant writes in the appeal, "that the obligation for the hotelier to supply tap water does not exist, it cannot be denied that the failure to provide drinking water is, in any case, a inefficiency that deserves to be compensated" because "anyone staying in a hotel, regardless of class, legitimately expects to be able to drink tap water during meals, just as they take for granted a bed with sheets, a warm room, soap in the bathroom, etc.".

And to assert her right to quench her thirst with water from municipal pipelines, the customer also cites theConstitution. According to the constitutional and national sources, 'water is a natural good and auniversal human right of each individual and that the free supply of a minimum vital quantity necessary to satisfy essential needs must be guaranteed, even in cases of arrears'.

The defence also emphasises that 'it is quite clear that the supply of drinking water is part of the characteristic services of the restaurant business, rectius hotel business and in particular in the case where, said service is an integral part of a tourist package, duly paid for, including half board (excluding drinks)'.

The right to drink tap water

A further clarification concerns the fact that the request for tap water had been made with the commitment to pay the price of the single jug. Furthermore, the Justice of the Peace had erred in not considering as "bizarre" the prohibition placed by the establishment on its customers to drink water from the tap during meals. A contractual prohibition, in his opinion - in any case null and void because contrary to the law, as well as counterproductive "for the interests of the hotel structure in view of the negative publicity that inevitably derives from it".

But even the Court of Cassation did not agree with the defence's argument, which also contested the hotel's failure to prove that the tap water was not potable.

For the judges, various elements weighed heavily, first and foremost, the absence of a contract between the parties, in which the establishment declared itself willing to provide customers with tap water. A commitment that 'would have entailed for the hotel the implementation of self-control procedures, nor was the outcome of a possible microbiological examination of the host's water indicated'.

The absence of a law

In the judges' opinion, then, there is no rule of law requiring the supply of water from the public water mains to hotel guests in the course of catering activities. Therefore, the thesis, affirmed in the appeal, of the free choice that the customer could make, simply telling the waiter that he refuses to have sealed bottled water at the table, even at the cost of providing it himself, does not pass.

No asset damage therefore, because "non-asset damage is compensable only in the event of a non-minimal violation of a right ofconstitutional rank and, when such damage is caused by the violation of inviolable personal rights, it is in any case a consequential damage, which must be attached and proven".

The high bill is not enough to prove stress.