Towards an Aggiornamento of Civil Liability: For the Recognition of Pure Animal Harm

This article is an English translation of a study originally published in French in the Revue semestrielle de droit animalier (2022-2), entitled Vers un aggiornamento de la responsabilité civile : pour la reconnaissance d’un préjudice animalier pur. It examines the capacity of French civil liability law to recognize and compensate “pure animal harm,” understood as harm suffered directly and exclusively by the animal itself, independently of any derivative harm sustained by its owner or by associations. The study begins by highlighting the persistent inadequacy of existing liability actions. In current judicial practice, civil claims relating to injured animals are typically diverted either to the personal interests of the owner (material loss or emotional harm) or to the collective interests defended by animal protection associations. In both configurations, the animal’s own suffering remains legally invisible. Even the recognition of pure ecological harm has proven insufficient to address the individual animal’s interest, as it remains framed within environmental, rather than zoocentric, logic. The article argues that recent legislative developments—most notably the introduction of Article 515-14 of the French Civil Code, recognizing animals as living beings endowed with sentience, and the reform enshrining pure ecological harm—have transformed the normative context of civil liability. These changes invite a renewed interpretation of Article 1240 of the Civil Code and open the possibility of acknowledging pure animal harm without granting legal personality to animals. Drawing on a procedural approach that emphasizes the autonomy of the right of action, the study contends that civil liability can be adapted to protect the animal’s own interest in not suffering, understood as a legally protected interest distinct from subjective rights. Ultimately, the article advocates an aggiornamento of civil liability: a modernization that would allow French law to move beyond an exclusively anthropocentric framework and to integrate the animal as a direct victim of compensable harm.