Milupa judgment

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The Milupa judgment of the VI. Civil Senate of the Federal Court of Justice of November 12, 1991 is a judgment on producer liability . It deals with the manufacturer's duty to point out the dangers of his products.

facts

In the early 1980s, the Milupa company marketed a sugary instant tea drink for toddlers and baby bottles . The latter had an orthodontic teat, which meant that the protective effect of the saliva flow was less than that of conventional baby bottles.

In 1981, Professor Willi-Eckhard Wetzel from the University Clinic in Gießen and Marburg described in a German specialist journal that constant sucking caused by constantly rinsing the teeth with sugary liquid can lead to the nursing bottle syndrome , a form of caries on milk teeth . The company then added corresponding warning notices, which were to be found in the preparation instructions until the end of 1982 without special emphasis. In leaflets of an advertising nature, the dangers were also pointed out in the margin. The nursing bottle syndrome had already been described in foreign publications in 1971.

The plaintiff, who was born in 1979, drank larger quantities of the tea drink daily from the manufacturer's baby bottles until 1983. The bottles had been given to him to fall asleep, so that he had suckled for a long time unattended. In 1985 he was diagnosed with deciduous tooth caries and had several incisors extracted. He demanded compensation from the manufacturer.

judgment

The Federal Court of Justice, as the last instance, awarded the plaintiff compensation in accordance with Section 823 in conjunction with Section 847 of the German Civil Code (BGB) , as the manufacturer had not adequately fulfilled his duty to instruct.

The court took the view that the manufacturer should have been aware of the risk of deciduous tooth caries as early as 1979. In addition, the warning notices attached were not sufficient. Even after 1982, when the notices were highlighted, it could not be assumed that customers who had already bought the product frequently would read these notices because the warning was not clear enough. This breach of the duty to instruct was culpable because the manufacturer could not prove that he was not at fault. The judges also noted in the reasoning that while it was not intended use to suck the child continuously unattended, it was an obvious misuse, especially since the product had been advertised as reassuring.

Furthermore, the court ruled that in the product liability process no relief of evidence for the injured party analogous to the medical liability process is to be applied.

meaning

For several reasons, the Milupa ruling led to a significant tightening of case law in the area of ​​product liability. On the one hand, anyone who places a potentially dangerous product on the market must now check for themselves whether the product poses a health hazard. It is not enough to take action only after receiving information. On the other hand, the court made high demands on the warning notices.

criticism

The judgment is often criticized in the literature. One point of criticism is that the warning notices must be immediately apparent and it is not expected that the instructions for use are read through before use. This is true even if it is a well-known hazard, like the fact that sugary drinks lead to tooth decay.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BGHZ 116, 60.
  2. ↑ Jürgen Ensthaler: Product and producer liability . Hanser, Munich / Vienna 2006, p. 30 f.
  3. ↑ Beate Ilona Nettelbeck: Product safety, product liability: requirements for product safety and their implementation . Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 1995, p. 35.