1. The seller is obliged to provide safe conditions for the health of consumers and the safety of their property. The emergence of a tortious obligation in itself does not exclude the possibility of applying to the legal relations of the parties the Law of the Russian Federation of February 7, 1992 N 2300-I “On the Protection of Consumer Rights” <2>
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<2> Hereinafter – the Law on Protection of Consumer Rights.
B. filed a lawsuit against the company for compensation for moral damage and collection of a fine provided for in paragraph 6 of Article 13 of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights, indicating in support of the claim that she was injured when she fell on the icy stairs of a store located in the premises rented by the defendant.
According to the protocol ruling of the court, an individual entrepreneur <3>, who is the owner of the premises, was invited to participate in the case as a co-defendant.
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<3> Hereinafter – individual entrepreneur.
Having established the fact of harm to B.‘s health as a result of improper maintenance of the stairs at the entrance to the store and evasion of voluntarily satisfying the consumer’s demands, the court of first instance recovered 35,000 rubles from the company and the individual entrepreneur in favor of the plaintiff. for compensation for moral damage and 17,500 rubles each as a consumer penalty.
the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights was not applicable.
The rest of the decision of the trial court was left unchanged.
The Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction left the appeal ruling unchanged.
The Judicial Collegium for Civil Cases of the Supreme Court, canceling the decisions of the courts of appeal and cassation instances and sending the case for a new appeal hearing, indicated the following.
From the preamble of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights and the clarifications contained in paragraph 1 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court dated June 28, 2012 No. 17 “On the consideration by courts of civil cases in disputes regarding the protection of consumer rights” <4>, it follows that the consumer is subject to including a citizen who has not yet taken the action of purchasing goods, but had the intention of ordering or purchasing, or ordering or purchasing goods (work, services).
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<4> Hereinafter is the resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court dated June 28, 2012 No. 17.
At the same time, as stated in the tenth paragraph of the preamble of the said law, the safety of a product (work, service) means the safety of a product (work, service) for life, health, property of the consumer and the environment under normal conditions of its use, storage, transportation and disposal, as well as the safety of the process of performing work (providing services).
The consumer has the right to ensure that the product (work, service), under normal conditions of its use, storage, transportation and disposal, is safe for the life, health of the consumer, the environment, and also does not cause harm to the consumer’s property (clause 1 of Article 7 of the Law on the Protection of consumer rights).
By virtue of the third paragraph of paragraph 2 of Article 7 of the said law, damage caused to the life, health or property of the consumer due to failure to ensure the safety of the product (work) is subject to compensation in accordance with Article 14 of this law.
Paragraph 1 of Article 14 of the same law stipulates that damage caused to the life, health or property of a consumer due to design, production, prescription or other defects of a product (work, service) is subject to compensation in full.
According to paragraph 138 of “GOST R 51303—2013. National standard of the Russian Federation. Trade. Terms and definitions,” the security of a trade service is understood as a set of properties of a service, the manifestation of which, under normal conditions of its provision, does not expose the life, health and property of the buyer (consumer) to an unacceptable risk..
From the above it follows that the seller is obliged to provide safe conditions for the health of consumers and the safety of their property. At the same time, the mere occurrence of an obligation arising from a tort does not exclude the possibility of qualifying the legal relations of the parties as legal relations between a consumer and a seller, and therefore does not exclude the application of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights in terms of liability measures for violation of consumer rights.
