Rome

One-year sentence for the owners of the rottweilers that killed a runner in Manziana: the sentence of the Gup of Civitavecchia

The court decision emphasises the responsibility for the custody of the animals, with a provisional award of 50,000 euro and a reference to the case law of the Supreme Court.

by Patrizia Maciocchi

11 February 2026Aggiornato alle ore 20:05

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2' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

The Supreme Court precedent

2' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

One year, in abbreviated rite for the two owners of thethree rottweilers who mauled and killed 39-year-old Paolo Pasqualini while he was jogging on 11 February 2024 in the woods of Manziana, near Rome. This was decided by the Gup of Civitavecchia in a ruling that ordered a provisional award of 50,000 euro. The Public Prosecutor's Office had requested the committal for trial of the couple who owned the animals because 'through negligence consisting in negligence, imprudence, and inexperience' they had failed 'to adequately take care of the three molossi'.

According to the prosecution, the house was unsuitable for keeping dogs as it was 'bounded by an external fence' with an opening 'of about 25-30 centimetres', causing the three dogs to escape from the house and enter the adjacent Manziana forest where they fatally attacked the victim.

"The family is predictably not satisfied with this ruling. When there is the death of a loved one, in a case of manslaughter like this, it is not easy for a lawyer to explain that the law does not consider that the person who caused the death is not a murderer," says lawyer Aldo Minghelli, plaintiff's counsel for the victim's sister.

The Supreme Court precedent

The decision of the Gup of Civitavecchia is in line with the now consolidated jurisprudence of the Court of Cassation on the custody obligations that are incumbent on the keeper of the dog, and certainly not only on the owner, when this is a risk to people's safety. Finally, in sentence 15701 of 22 April 2025, the Supreme Court affirmed that themere keeper assumes a position of guarantee and is liable for negligent manslaughter if he does not take 'every precaution' to avoid aggression.

On that occasion, the judges had examined the case of the death of a passer-by, who had ended up in a river when three of the four dogs owned by the defendant had escaped through a gap in the fence. For the Court of Appeal of L'Aquila, which had convicted the defendant, there was a causal link between the failure to provide care and the victim's death. Unsuccessfully, the defence had asserted in Cassation that there was no specific culpable conduct, arguing that the presence of a fence was sufficient.

For the Supreme Court, however the fence is not enough. "On the subject of culpable homicide, the position of guarantor, also assumed by the mere holder of an animal," reads the ruling, "imposes the obligation to control and keep it in custody by adopting every precaution aimed at preventing aggressions to third parties, it not being sufficient, for that purpose, that the animal is kept in a private place or, in any case, fenced off, since its location is required to be concretely suitable for preventing it from escaping the custody or control of the keeper'.

It is useless, therefore, to entrench oneself behind 'the fence'. If it is not demonstrated that there has been a constant check that this is 'dog-proof'. And therefore intact, suitable for the animal's temperament and free of breaches. The keeper must foresee possible structural flaws and intervene in good time. The court held that the escape of dogs through an existing opening was foreseeable, and therefore negligent the failure to exercise vigilance.