Case law

  • Case Details
    • National ID: VIII ZR 173/05
    • Member State: Germany
    • Common Name:link
    • Decision type: Other
    • Decision date: 29/03/2006
    • Court: BGH (Supreme court)
    • Subject:
    • Plaintiff:
    • Defendant:
    • Keywords:
  • Directive Articles
    Consumer Sales and Guarantees Directive, Article 1, 2. Consumer Sales and Guarantees Directive, Article 5, 3.
  • Headnote
    A consumer sale (§ 474 BGB) presupposes that the seller acts in the course of a business and thus as an entrepreneur. It is, however, not necessary, that the seller acts with the intention to generate profit.
    The reversal of the burden of proof under § 476 BGB in principle also applies to the sale of animals. It can be excluded due to the nature of the defect with respect to certain animal diseases. This is, however, not the case, if the animal suffers from a seasonally visible allergy (here: summer eczema of a horse).
    About the rebuttal of the presumption under § 476 BGB with respect to an animal disease.
  • Facts
    The defendant commercially bread Arabian horses. On 18 March 2002 she sold and delivered to the plaintiff a stallion which had been born in 1997 for the purchase price for EUR 7.100. By letter dating from 17 September 2002, the seller declared the rescission of the contract, claiming that the horse suffered from health problems, in particular from an allergy which had appeared in August 2002 (a so-called summer eczema). The defendant rejected the unwinding of the contract. The plaintiff initiated civil proceedings. He demanded the repayment of the purchase price versus the restitution of the horse together with compensation for futile expenses – totalling to EUR 13.880,75 together with interest – and applied for the judicial declaration that the defendant had been in default of acceptance with respect to the horse and that he was obliged to compensate the plaintiff for all future expenses arising from the keeping of the horse.
    In the appellate court, the claim was partially successful.
  • Legal issue
    The FCJ has overruled the appellate court’s judgement and referred the case back for a new decision.
    The plaintiff could not be awarded with a right to rescind the contract of 18 March 2002 under § 346(1) BGB in conjunction with §§ 326(5), 437 no. 2 BGB. The appellate court’s opinion that § 476 BGB was applicable in this case could not be objected, since the contract of sale dating from 18 March 2002 was indeed a consumer sale (§ 474(1) BGB) to which § 476 BGB generally applied. It was undisputed that the buyer acted as a consumer in the terms of § 13 BGB and the appellate court had correctly qualified the defendant as an entrepreneur. A consumer sale presupposed that the seller acted in the course of a business and thus as an entrepreneur. It was, however, not required that the seller acts with the intention to generate profit.
    In addition, the legal prerequisites for the application of the presumption provided by § 476 BGB were all met. The horse’s allergy had appeared in August 2002 and thus within 6 months after the passing of the risk. According to the judicature of the senate, the appearance of this defect lead to the presumption that the defect already had existed upon the passing of the risk. However, according to § 476 BGB the presumption did not apply if it was incompatible with the nature of the purchased good or the nature of the defect. This was not the case here. Because of § 90a S. 3 BGB, § 476 BGB also applied accordingly to the sale of a horse. In the case at hand, the presumption was not incompatible with the nature of the defect.

    However, there were peculiarities resulting from the nature of the animal as a living creature that had to be taken into account with respect to the relation of rule and exception in § 476 BGB and the consumer protection intended by the provision. Thus, the existing judicature and opinions in legal literature on the scope of the presumption regarding movable goods (§ 90 BGB) could not be transferred to animals without any modification. It is expressly pointed out in the traveaux préparatoires to § 476 BGB that the presumption would be incompatible with the nature of the defect at least with respect to animal diseases, because of the uncertainty about the exact length of the incubation period. In these cases, it could not be established whether the animal had already been infected upon the delivery of the animal (the passing of the risk). Thus, a presumption to the effect that the defect had already existed at a certain point in time could not be justified. However, this did not necessarily have to apply to other defects of the animal (Official Publication of the German Parliament [Bundestagsdrucksache] 14/6040, p. 245). The appellate court had correctly qualified the horse’s allergy as not being incompatible with the presumption in § 476 BGB. According to the expert report obtained by the appellate court, a summer eczema was not an hidden illness, but a seasonally visible allergy which was caused by an overreaction of the immune system to mosquito bites. This lead to the clinical condition described by the expert (inflammation of the skin, itching). The symptoms of the summer eczema caused by the contact with the allergen (rubbing spots, hair breakage), which could not have been overlooked. It was thus indeed possible to establish whether the horse suffered from the allergy, although the allergy was not visible at the time the contract was concluded due to the seasonal lack of contact with mosquitoes. Therefore, there was in any case no room for an exclusion of the presumption under § 476 BGB on the grounds of the impossibility to determine the moment of the infection mentioned in the traveaux préparatoires.
  • Decision

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