Product Liability: Violation of a Protected Right

Compensation can only be claimed under § 823 para. 1 of the German Civil Code if the listed protected right – body, health, property – has been damaged.

From a case law perspective, the affected item does not necessarily have to have been harmed or destroyed for damage to property to have occurred. A restriction of its intended use is sufficient. However, in principle compensation must be paid for destroying other items due to the “producer goods”: By contrast, damage on the actual defective product – a built-in motor catches fire and destroys not only the machine but also itself – will only be compensated under the most limited conditions. This is the case because otherwise the boundary between the purely contractual liability of the seller and the interesting liability in tort of the producer would
become blurred. The details here are very complex and cannot be described within the scope of this Safety Compendium.