A person injured by a defective item has three years to seek compensation.
The Court of Cassation specifies that this period begins from the moment the victim knows the extent of their damage.
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Household robots, DIY utensils, toys… In France, many defective products cause domestic accidents. The victim can obtain compensation through their personal accident guarantee. Article 1386-1 of the Civil Code also engages the liability of the manufacturer or seller of manufactured products in the event of a safety defect.
This liability arises under three conditions: a defect, damage and a causal link between the two. The victim has three years to file a claim. Please note, the courts consider this action inadmissible if the product in question has been marketed for more than ten years. The Court of Cassation notes that the time limit runs from the moment the victim knows the extent of the damage.
A consumer is injured by a poor quality cream siphon. When opened, it could not resist the pressure and caused him to lose one of his eyes. The state of the injury and its after-effects are definitively fixed, “consolidated” as the jurists say five years later. The victim then asks the seller’s insurer to compensate him.
The latter refuses: “It is too late. The law gives three years to claim, from the date on which the victim had – or should have had – knowledge of his damage. It was the day of the accident since, that day- there she knew the product was defective, she knew she was injured, and she knew who the seller or manufacturer of the siphon was.”
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Know the consequences of the accident to adapt the request for compensation
The Court of Cassation rejects the insurer’s arguments. “To be aware of the extent of the damage suffered and to be able to claim compensation accordingly, we must wait to know the extent of the damage. This presupposes knowing the final state of the injuries and the after-effects.” Only a final medical report signed five years after the accident made it possible to establish this situation. “It is only then that the three-year period for requesting the insurer begins to run and the request was therefore not time-barred, even if almost six years had passed since the accident”decide the judges.
