News Supreme Court rulings December 2015

Supreme Court: residence manager who cuts off power to delinquent tenant commits crime

The Supreme Court, in ruling no. 47276/2015, ruled that the residence manager who disconnects the electricity to the housing unit of the delinquent condominium owner is liable to conviction for the crime of arbitrary exercise of his or her own reasons with violence against property provided for in Art. 392 of the Criminal Code, even if he acted as a mere executor of directives given by the company to which he belongs.
In declaring inadmissible the appeal brought by the manager of a residence hall, the Supreme Court judges in fact referred to the settled case law, according to which “the active subject of the crime of arbitrary exercise of one’s own reasons can also be the one who exercises a right even though he does not have the ownership of it, but acting on behalf of the actual owner.”

Supreme Court: professional cannot be a mediocre. Must practice
like a ‘good one’

According to the Third Civil Section of the Supreme Court (Judgment No. 24213/2015), a professional may be liable to pay compensation for damages caused in the course of his or her business if he or she does not behave like a“good one.”
Indeed, the Ermellini made it clear that precisely because of the greater stringency prescribed by Art. 1176 para. 2 on the subject of the performance of obligations of a professional nature as opposed to that required for the performance of common obligations, the professional falls into fault even if he or she engages in conduct that differs from that which an ideal “average” professional would have engaged in in his or her place, which is to be understood, according to case law, not as an “average” professional, but as one who is“good,” i.e., serious, prepared, zealous, efficient.

Supreme Court: wife’s jewelry seized if bought through husband’s malfeasance

The Supreme Court, in ruling no. 45517/2015, sanctioned the full legitimacy of the seizure of jewelry found in a woman’s safe deposit box if it is presumed to have been purchased with money from embezzlement and money laundering perpetrated by her husband.
Indeed, the legitimacy judges referred to the Supreme Court’s consistent jurisprudence, pointing out that the seizure in question was justified by the need for the seized jewelry to remain at the disposal of the judicial authorities to ascertain whether it was pertinent to the crime of money laundering charged against the husband.