Antonio Pugliese, Alberto Gaiti and Cristiano Boiti (eds.)Veterinary ScienceCurrent Aspects in Biology, Animal Pathology, Clinic and Food Hygiene10.1007/978-3-642-23271-8_13© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
13. The Importance of the New Institution of “Mediation” for the Civil Liability of Veterinarians
(1)
Dipartimento di Sanità Pubblica Veterinaria, Università degli Studi di Messina, Messina, Italy
Abstract
Veterinarians, by the nature of their occupation, deal with animals on a daily basis and in a variety of contexts. The core of their activities involves the provision of professional services, which are usually performed to the satisfaction of both the animal and the owner. Not all of the interactions have the desired outcome, however, and veterinarians who have been defendants in lawsuits find themselves confronted with a wide variety of legal claims. Lawsuits that involve the assessment of medical liability generally take a long time, and in recent years, the number of court actions against veterinarians has increased. In view of this fact, we examine legislative decree no. 28/2010, which also concerns civil proceedings on liability in human medicine. We forecast that the new institution of “mediation” could become an important instrument in hastening the resolution of court actions concerning medical liability.
Keywords
Civil lawMediationProfessional liabilityVeterinarian13.1 Introduction
The veterinary, medical, and dental professions are defined in the Italian Civil Code (c.c.) as “intellectual” (art. 2229 c.c.). When a veterinarian accepts the task of treating an animal, he/she puts him/herself under an obligation to perform a specific job for the owner, meaning that both the veterinarian and client (in this case, the owner) stipulate a contract called “contract of intellectual work,” which involves rights and mutual obligations (Panichi et al. 2002, 2003).
It should be emphasized that the obligations under which a veterinarian works have special connotations because of the sensitive situations in which he/she often has to operate and the type of liability that may arise. First, it should be noted that the provision of medical care in general, veterinary care in this case, involves obligations that belong to the category of “means” and not “results.”
The veterinarian has no obligation under law to guarantee concrete results from his/her professional services. However, he/she must do whatever is technically possible to progress toward the result, and ideally even attain it, with the consequence that his/her possible failure – for example the death of the animal – should be evaluated only along the lines of duties of professional activities and, in particular, in relation to the “duty of care.” The duty of care should be respected in any type of contract, as required by the first paragraph of art. 1176 c.c. that says, “In carrying out his obligation, the debtor must use the diligence of a good father …” but, concerning the obligations inherent in professional activity (including medical activity), the second paragraph continues by saying, “… the diligence must be assessed with regard to the nature of the business.”
Stay updated, free articles. Join our Telegram channel
Full access? Get Clinical Tree
