## Facts

- In Tuscany, the town of Marradi held an annual ball game in the public square as entertainment connected to a feast.
- The homes surrounding the square faced a known risk of damage from the game, yet homeowners historically did not object to the event.
- Each year, the ball teams gave surrounding homeowners advance notice of the game’s date so homeowners could take steps to protect their property (such as securing windows and shutters).
- The Fabroni family (Fabronis) had recently purchased a house on the square and undertook substantial restoration work.
- Restoration materials, including sand and lime, were left near/around the property.
- In 1778, after receiving notice of the planned game, the Fabronis petitioned a seven-member community magistrate to halt the event or require the teams to promise payment for any damage suffered by a homeowner.
- The community magistrate determined there was no adequate alternative location for the game and allowed it to proceed, reserving the damages question for later if harm occurred.
- The Fabronis did not appeal the order allowing the game to proceed.
- The game went forward, and balls struck the Fabroni house, causing damage to windows and shutters; the Fabronis also claimed the façade was soiled when a ball, after contacting sand and lime left from the restoration, hit the building.
- The teams denied responsibility for some or all of the claimed losses, arguing the Fabronis failed to take protective measures after notice and that the Fabronis’ own failure to remove sand and lime contributed to the façade-soiling claim.
- In the later damages action, the community magistrate awarded compensation for both (1) window and shutter damage and (2) façade soiling.
- On appeal, the Vicario upheld compensation for the window and shutter damage but rejected compensation for the façade damage attributed to the sand-and-lime-covered ball.
- Both sides appealed to the magistrato supremo in Florence, which commissioned the Rota Fiorentina (the highest court in the Tuscan Grandduchy) to decide the matter.

## Issues

1. Whether participants in a traditional, publicly permitted feast-day ball game held in a town square are liable in damages for foreseeable harm to adjacent property.
2. Whether advance notice to homeowners and the opportunity to take protective measures limits or affects the players’ liability for resulting damage.
3. Whether a homeowner’s conduct contributing to the harm (including failure to remove sand and lime from renovations) can defeat or limit recovery for particular items of damage.
4. Whether the earlier, unappealed order allowing the game to proceed bars or limits later civil damages claims arising from the game.

## Decision

- The Rota Fiorentina treated the customary, permitted nature of the game as relevant to context but not as a complete defense to civil liability for property damage.
- The court upheld recovery for damage to windows and shutters as a foreseeable result of conducting the game in the confined public square.
- The court denied recovery for the façade soiling attributed to the sand-and-lime-covered ball, reasoning that the homeowners’ own omissions materially contributed to that category of loss.
- The result largely left in place the Vicario’s division between compensable direct impact damage (windows/shutters) and non-compensable damage tied to the plaintiffs’ contribution (façade soiling).

## Legal Principles

- A long-standing communal festivity or customary use of a public square does not, by itself, immunize private actors from civil liability for property damage they cause.
- When an activity foreseeably endangers nearby property, the actors conducting it may be responsible for direct damage ordinarily associated with the activity (such as broken windows and shutters).
- Advance notice to those at risk supports expecting reasonable self-protection by property owners and may affect liability where loss could have been prevented by ordinary precautions.
- A plaintiff’s contribution to the occurrence or extent of harm can bar or reduce recovery for the portion of damage linked to that contribution, even if other damage remains compensable.
- Prior public authorization to conduct an activity may permit it to occur, but it does not necessarily resolve or eliminate later private-law claims for resulting damage.

## Conclusion

Fabronis involved an annual, publicly allowed ball game that carried known risks to surrounding homes. The Rota Fiorentina imposed liability for foreseeable, direct game-caused damage to windows and shutters despite the event’s customary status and advance notice, while denying recovery for façade soiling where the homeowners’ own restoration debris helped produce that harm.


Fabronis v. Marradi Ball Players, Gino Gorla, A Decision of the Rota Fiorentina of 1780 on Liability for Damages Caused by the “Ball Game,” 49 Tulane Law Rev. 346-55 (1975)