In the event of an accident with a tram, compensation becomes easier because the Court of Cassation has modified its case law.
In a judgment handed down on December 21, 2023, the Court of Cassation decided to now apply the Badinter law of 1985 which allows any victim to be compensated by the insurer of any vehicle involved, regardless of the actual liability. of its driver.
Until now, judges have had difficulty applying this law to the tramway since it excludes, in its first article, the tramway or the train, these circulating on their own site, on tracks which are their own and not shared in principle with others. other vehicles or street users.
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Automatic compensation
However, the Court of Cassation is gradually restricting this notion of its own site. It has therefore just ruled that a teenager, hit by the tram because he had lost his balance while heckling with friends in the street, was entitled to the automatic compensation provided for road accidents with a motor vehicle.
As soon as the tramway does not run in a place inaccessible to others, separated by impassable obstacles or elevation, it can no longer be judged that it is running on its own site, she said. This tram runs on the same street as other users and is then subject to the same rules in the event of an accident.
The tramway, argued the insurer of this public transport, runs on its own track and it is not expected that a pedestrian, or even another vehicle, will encroach on this area. But the argument was dismissed.
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Do not commit an inexcusable mistake
This means that victims of accidents with a tram no longer have to prove anyone’s fault to receive compensation. Compensation is automatic, with the sole reservation that they have not committed an inexcusable fault which would be the exclusive cause of the accident.
In March 2020, the Court refused this rule of quasi-automatic compensation for a pedestrian who crossed the tramway track outside of the planned passages because it then judged that it was on the tramway’s own site. And in November 2016, it even refused to allow a user injured by a train at a level crossing. Case law now abandoned.
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