Court of Justice hands down judgment on ‘foreseeability defence’ for deliberate acts of hotel employees (X v Kuoni Travel)

Article summary

Personal Injury analysis: The Court of Justice of the European Union has handed down its highly anticipated judgment in X v Kuoni. The court had been asked by the UK Supreme Court to consider the scope of the defence set out in Article 5(2) of the Package Travel Directive. The court was broadly in agreement with the position adopted by Advocate General Szpunar in the opinion he provided in this case last year. In response to the questions referred by the Supreme Court, the court has set out that an employee is not a supplier of services, and that an organiser can be liable for the actions of a supplier’s employee where those actions constitute improper or non-performance of an obligation under a package travel contract. The acts of an employee are not events which can be ‘foreseen or forestalled’ and therefore cannot exclude a travel operator from liability. Written...