With the passage of Irma, the villa that a couple and their children rented was damaged.
The father does a minimum of work which is reimbursed by the owner. In October 2019, the little boy of the family rode a scooter on the terrace of the villa and hit the railing making a hole. His little sister will go through the hole, fall and hurtle down the slope. She is not injured, only scratches. The family files a complaint for endangerment against the owner of the villa, the real estate agency that manages it and the person responsible for it. An investigation is opened at the end of which the prosecution decides to prosecute the three protagonists for endangerment by clearly deliberate violation of a regulatory obligation of safety or prudence. In other words, JCC, the owner, JPC, the agency manager and his agency are criticized for not having sufficiently secured the terrace after Irma's passage by replacing the destroyed railing. They were summoned to the Saint-Martin local court on Thursday February 18.
The victims are absent because they had indicated earlier that they were withdrawing. The hearing did take place.
At the bar, the account of the events was explained by the judge through the statements of the victims during their hearing as part of the investigation. It is noted by each of the parties that the owner carried out on his own a minimum of work to allow his family to return to live in the villa, he provided the invoices to the agency and was reimbursed by the owner. No expert report indicates that there is a danger.
And it is these arguments which constituted the line of defense of the defendants. The owner claims to have never been informed of any danger, either from his tenants directly, or by the agency. The head of the agency also says he was never informed. The defense lawyer also recalls that according to the law, the installation of a barrier is mandatory "on floors other than the ground floor ... But in this case it is a single storey villa".
The deputy prosecutor requested a fine of 10 euros against the agency alone. He left free appreciation of the sentence with regard to his manager and asked for the release of the owner who is not responsible insofar as he had entrusted the management of his property.
After having deliberated, the court pronounced an acquittal against the three defendants.
(more details on soualigapost.com)
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