hanging flower boxes on your deck or balcony is there a mistake on your part that could bring on a lawsuit ? The answer with a practical case : a true story that recently happened to one of our readers.
The neighbor who lives below my apartment is pursuing me for misconduct before the courts because the planters installed on my terrace fell on her balcony, breaking its paving and furniture. It is estimated that I should not place them in suspension to the outside, and that I would have had to hang inside the railing along my terrace. Can he win the case ? Agnes G., 75003 Paris.
There is no general definition of misconduct in the civil. It is indisputable if you commit an act expressly forbidden or if you act also for the purpose of harming others. But the concept is actually much broader than that. According to the courts, there is a fault each time that a person has an abnormal behaviour compared to the one that would have been a “good father of family”, in the same circumstances.
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nuisance
Island of Oléron : the justice authorizes the cock Maurice to continue to sing Dax : he assigns his neighbor to court because of the noise of the ducks Trees, plantations… station to overflow at the neighbor
Act reasonably
For the judges, the good father of the family is always reasonably, responsibly and prudently. Thus, several decisions have upheld the fault against a person who knocks over objects in a store, waving his umbrella, an individual who runs to catch a bus and falling in an elderly person, a skier coming down a trail too fast and hit a child… In your situation, the installing of the hanging planters to the outside of your terrace can actually be constitutive of a fault. A reasonable person would have placed these planter boxes on the inside face of the railing, knowing that in the event of a rupture of the fasteners or sudden wind, they could fall to the lower floor, at the risk of causing damage or injury to the occupants. It is therefore very likely that the judges are right to demand your neighbor unhappy.