La responsabilità civile nell'attività sciistica = Ski Accidents and civil Liability

According to data collected from Dolomiti Superski, in the season 2013/2014 nearly ten million days of ski passes have been sold for a total of about 149 million "beeps", and that only in the Alpine area that ranges from San Martino di Castrozza to Plan de Corones, Val di Fassa, Alta Pusteria. These data give a measure of the size reached by this sport nowadays. Beautiful landscapes and bashed slopes, that seem snooker tables, attract millions of enthusiasts every winter, children and adults, from beginners to the more experienced ones. Unfortunately, due to the crowding of ski areas, due to the harsh weather conditions occurring sometimes, due to the imprudent skiers or careless operators of the lifts or ski instructors, accidents occur as a result of which often skiers suffer damage, even serious ones, and hence the assault to the Courts to ask for compensation. The legislator, pushed by the growing number of the ski area visitors and, with it, the number of accidents, enacted Law 363/2003 in order to regulate the obligations of operators of ski areas and the behavior of skiers. The main purpose of this law is to prevent accidents through a more careful and aware exploit of the slopes, both on the part of managers and users ... but once the incident occurred, however, the law in question fails to provide operators with the right elements to determine the consequences of accidents, and respond to requests for damages. The article 4 of Law n. 363/2003, for example, states that, in case of accidenti s identifiable a civil liability of the operator of ski areas, but it gives no indications about the nature of that responsibility. No Law, nor the 363/2003 or L. n.81/1991 - specifically dedicated to the profession of the ski instructor - tells us if the ski instructor can be considered responsible for the damages occurred to the pupils during lessons and which kind of responsibility the ski instructor has to face. In absence of law evidence, the search for criteria and solutions about the responsibility of the operator, the ski instructor, the school, the costumer, in case of an accident, is left to the ingeniousness of the interpreters. The task assigned to the jurist is complex and intricate because the field of civil liability is full of nuances and the reality of the litigation is varied and multifaceted: the same ski accident is often assessed either through the rules of tort liability either through those of the contractual liability, with significant differences in terms of burden of proof and time limitation for the actor.