Door open, door closed, or just half open or half closed? The Munich District Court recently dealt with a parking scenario in a supermarket car park. A woman had complained because a man had scraped his car against the open door of her car while maneuvering into the neighboring parking space.
But was the door already open, or was it only opened during parking? To get straight to the point: The woman failed with her lawsuit in court and now has to pay the legal costs.
The plaintiff’s husband parked the car in a supermarket parking lot in Aubing on March 3, 2020. He was sitting in the car and was still on the phone, so the driver’s door had been open for several minutes, the woman claimed. Ergo, the collision was “unavoidable” for her husband. However, the person parking assured that when he steered his Opel into the parking space, the door was closed. And it was only during the parking maneuver that the man opened the door and crashed into his vehicle.
A good 6,000 euros in repair costs were incurred, and the insurance company of the person who allegedly caused the accident had already covered half of the damage amount in advance. But the woman from Munich did not want to accept that and took the driver and the insurance company to court.
This was heard by an uninvolved witness, the defendant, the husband and also obtained an expert opinion. In the end, the Chamber agreed with the defendant. The court was not convinced by the claim that the door of the car had been open for several minutes.
It even went one step further: Anyone who gets into or out of a vehicle must behave in such a way that endangering other road users is excluded, said the civil chamber. And especially in a supermarket car park, where maneuvering and parking maneuvers are the order of the day, “closer attention” must be paid to such processes. In other words, the plaintiff’s husband would have violated his duty of care if the door had actually been open for several minutes.
De facto, this means for the plaintiff: She has to pay the second half of the damage, as the defendant’s insurance company had already regulated in advance. Then there are the process costs. The judgment is final (Az: 343 C 106/21).