Kavala: claim over the bridge rejected

The three-member Administrative Court of First Instance of Kavala has rejected in its entirety a claim brought by the driver and owner of a crane truck over the collapse of a bridge in November 2018. The claimant was seeking a total of more than 144,000 euros for material damage, loss of earnings and non-material harm, and had brought the action against the Municipality of Kavala, the Region and the Greek State. The bridge stood in front of the old Kavala Hospital and collapsed at the moment the vehicle was crossing it, causing serious damage to the machine itself. The case was heard before an administrative rather than a civil court, since it was directed against bodies of the State and of local government.

The technical expert report was decisive for the court’s judgment. According to it, the actual weight of the crane truck was 67.16 tonnes, at a time when the bridge’s operating limit was 40 tonnes — that is, an excess of more than 65%. The vehicle was moreover travelling without the required transit permit for a special works machine, a document that presupposes an inspection of the route and of the infrastructure by the competent services. Additional strain, as emerged, was caused by sharp braking while crossing. The transit permit for a special works machine is issued after a route study and is a basic precondition for any heavy-load transport.

The court accepted that responsibility for maintaining that particular stretch of road lay with the Municipality of Kavala. It held, however, that the collapse was not due to any omission by the competent services, adopting the finding that even with regular maintenance the bridge would have collapsed under the weight of that particular vehicle. In other words, the court did not rule that the infrastructure had been adequately maintained, but that there was no causal link between the condition of the bridge and the damage claimed by the claimant. The concept of a causal link is central to the law of compensation and requires proof that the damage arose from the specific omission.

The ruling is of interest for similar cases, since it draws the line between the liability of the maintenance authority and the liability of the user of the infrastructure. Load limits on bridges are binding, and exceeding them, especially without the special transit permit, shifts liability onto the driver and the company carrying out the transport. The information is attributed by evros24.gr to dikastiko.gr, which was the first to report the content of the ruling. It is not known whether the claimant will lodge an appeal. More in the Justice section. The deadline for lodging an appeal runs from the service of the ruling on the claimant.