Product Liability in Italy

The Directive 85/374/EEC on Product Liability is more than thirty years old and was adopted in a completely different context from the current one, in a pre-digital age.It is very important to understand how it has since been applied in the EU member states and how this application has changed over the years. In order to systematically analyze the Italian case law interpreting the notion of defectiveness of a product, the paper distinguish different categories: 1) case law on damages foreseeable and avoidable; 2) case law on damages unforeseeable and unavoidable; 3) case law on damages statistically foreseeable in advance, though unavoidable. The paper discusses in particular the application of a risk/benefit analysis that exempts the producer from his liability in some cases.