Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Non-contractual liability - Conditions - Lawful act - Real damage, causal link and unusual and special damage - Cumulative nature

(EC Treaty, Art. 215 (now Art. 288 EC))

2. Non-contractual liability - Conditions - Damage - Claims that have become temporarily irrecoverable following the adoption of a Community measure - Burden of proof

(EC Treaty, Art. 215 (now Art. 288 EC))

3. Appeals - Pleas in law - Erroneous assessment of the facts - Inadmissibility - Exception - Substantive inaccuracy in findings attributable to the documents submitted or clear sense of the evidence distorted

(EC Treaty, Art. 168a (now Art. 225 EC); Statute of the Court of Justice EC, Art. 51, first subpara.))

4. Appeals - Pleas in law - Erroneous assessment of items of evidence adduced in the proper manner - Inadmissibility - Dismissal - Obligation on the Court of First Instance to give reasons for its assessment of items of evidence - Scope

(EC Treaty, Art. 168a (now Art. 225 EC); Statute of the Court of First Instance EC, Art. 52, first subpara.))

Summary

1. If the Community is to incur non-contractual liability as a result of a lawful or unlawful act, it is necessary in any event to prove that the alleged damage is real and that a causal link exists between that act and the alleged damage. In the event of the principle of Community liability for a lawful act being recognised in Community law, a precondition for such liability would in any event be the existence of unusual and special damage. It follows that the Community cannot incur non-contractual liability in respect of a lawful act unless the three conditions referred to, namely the reality of the damage allegedly suffered, the causal link between it and the act on the part of the Community institutions, and the unusual and special nature of that damage, are all fulfilled.

( see paras 17-19 )

2. In an action to establish the non-contractual liability of the Community it is incumbent upon the applicant to produce to the Community judicature the evidence to establish the fact of the damage which it claims to have suffered. Moreover, the existence of actual and certain damage cannot be considered in the abstract by the Community judicature but must be assessed in relation to the specific facts characterising each particular case in point.

Where an applicant alleges that he has suffered actual and certain damage because his claims have become temporarily irrecoverable following the adoption of a Community measure, the fact that those claims have not yet been paid at the date of the application for compensation cannot suffice to prove that those claims have become irrecoverable and that there is therefore actual and certain damage within the meaning of the relevant case-law. An applicant must at least produce evidence to show that he has exhausted all avenues and legal remedies open to him in order to recover his claims.

( see paras 23, 25-27 )

3. The Court of First Instance has exclusive jurisdiction to find the facts, save where a substantive inaccuracy in its findings is attributable to the documents submitted to it, and to appraise those facts. That appraisal thus does not, save where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted, constitute a point of law which is subject, as such, to review by the Court of Justice in the context of an appeal. Consequently, it is only where the appellant contends that the Court of First Instance has made findings which the documents in the file show to be substantially incorrect or that it has distorted the clear sense of the evidence before it, that objections based on findings of fact and their assessment in the contested judgment will be admissible.

( see paras 35-36 )

4. It is for the Court of First Instance alone to assess the value to be attached to the items of evidence adduced before it.The Court of First Instance cannot, subject to its obligation to observe general principles and the Rules of Procedure relating to the burden of proof and the adducing of evidence and not to distort the true sense of the evidence, be required to give express reasons for its assessment of the value of each piece of evidence presented to it, in particular where it considers that that evidence is unimportant or irrelevant to the outcome of the dispute.

( see paras 50-51 )