Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous novel character, would have really enjoyed the case. True to the motto “Where were you when the lights didn’t come on?”, the 23rd Civil Division at the Munich I Regional Court had to do real detective work to find out who accidentally flooded the stage area of the Cuvilliés Theater with more than 8,000 liters of water from the sprinkler system on January 1, 2019. To get straight to the point: It wasn’t the cleaning crew, and certainly not the gardener, but the mechanic. And his employer is now supposed to pay for the majority of the damage, amounting to almost half a million euros.
It all began with the trials and tribulations of love: The concert organizer München Musik rented the Rococo Theater for New Year’s Eve 2018 to let the old year disappear with Mozart’s “Così fan tutte”. The huge chandelier that hung in the stage set was also supposed to disappear the next day. The organizer sent a mechanic to do this. At the same time, two cleaners were supposed to dust the stairwell.
The fitter arrived at the theater between 1 and 1:30 p.m. The cleaning crew members were instructed not to let anyone into the theater. Still, they opened. Since the fitter was unable to find the light switch for the stage, he asked the cleaning staff for help. The women who were not allowed on stage tried to help. At 1:34 p.m. the deluge extinguishing system was triggered and the cold water rained down from the ceiling for ten minutes, flooding the entire stage area before the main switch was found to turn it off.
But who was where when the lights didn’t come on, but the sprinkler system did? One of the cleaning service employees explained that she had stopped near the door to shine her cell phone. She saw the man with a key on the glass control box. The other witness stated that the mechanic opened the switch box and used a key to operate the switch for the sprinkler system. The mechanic himself claimed that he had kept the door to the stage open the whole time and that it was the women’s fault.
In such cases, the court must decide which statement it deems credible. And then the one woman was able to convince us of the cleaning service. Her testimony was constant and rich in detail – in contrast to the memories of the mechanic, who testified “in an interest-driven manner.” On the one hand, he could remember a lot of details, but could contribute very little to the core of the matter – the events at the control box.
However, the Free State of Bavaria did not escape completely unscathed as the host of the Cuvilliés Theater. According to a witness, the switch box in question should usually be closed or sealed. Since everyone was now more or less to blame, the chamber came to the conclusion that the Free State was entitled to 83 percent of the damage, with the concert organizer having to bear a larger part. The judgment is not final.