Limitations of Liability under EC Tort Law

Abstract

Only blood feuds in ancient times were, without limits, inherited from generation to generation. Today, nowhere is civil liability in tort entirely unrestricted. Every legal system knows of certain limitations at least in time, sometimes in the amount of damages or elsewhere. The following text deals with these limitations from the viewpoint of EC law though only in tort. But it must be stated at the onset that EC tort law as compared to EC (mainly consumer) contract law is still underdeveloped. At present, there are only a few legislative enactments which comprehensively deal with tortious liability and they are still far from codifying whole branches of tort law. And although the number of decisions of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) dealing with aspects relevant to tort law is already quite remarkable, its contribution to the development of a full-fledged European tort law is also still limited.