Ritorno all'obbligazione senza prestazione

This is a revisiting of obbligazione senza prestazione, the obligation without a primary duty of performance, a dogmatic category originated in Germany and developed in Italy, where it has been clarified that it is not the other name of culpa in contrahendo rather the general category of which culpa in contrahendo is only the first and most clear example. The specific utility of that one is on the one hand, that of overcoming a false classification as precontractual of situations which are not, as in the case of professional consultants as to third persons interested in the result of consultation. The same can be said of medical doctors operating in a hospital, where the patients are not their but of the hospital and still it is hard to consider them as people passing-by in the street. Indeed, even though patients have not asked doctor but hospital to be cured, a situation of reliance arises as between the person to be cured and the medical professionals who in fact operate on him/her. The italian Corte di Cassazione has accepted this doctrinal elaborations since 1999, affirming that although the doctor is not a counterpart in a contract with the patient, his liability is equally of contractual nature, where contractual is to be intended as qualification of a violation of specific duties. By this way the obbligazione senza prestazione reveals to be not only the correct way to resolve the problem of pure economic loss, but also to be suitable for situations of damage to persons where tortious liability does not reflect the relationship that without contract comes up between the wrongdoer and the victim. All the article is conceived as a series of answer to criticism of authors who in the meanwhile did not appreciate the category, apparently without good arguments.