A court ruling issued on June 18 has dictated that compensation must be paid by the condominium management company responsible for constructing a wall without municipal licensing. This wall, meant to house the mailboxes of a building, is at the center of a legal decision following a trial that began over a year ago.
The payment will be covered by the condominium and its insurers.
Braga City Council, also a defendant in the case, has been acquitted.
The wall had served since 1996 as the housing structure for the building’s mailboxes but became obsolete in 2012 when the mailboxes were relocated inside the building.
The ruling noted that the wall was left unrepaired and unremoved, without any safety or warning signs for potential danger.
The court found that since at least 2010, the wall showed significant signs of poor maintenance and posed a serious risk of collapsing onto the sidewalk.
In 2010, the condominium administration was notified by the local CTT supervisor and the postal worker about the deteriorating condition of the wall.
That same year, the condominium administrator alerted Braga City Council to the wall’s risk of collapsing, urging urgent repair measures.
The city council responded by setting a deadline for the condominium to secure the structure, but no actions were taken.
The physical records related to this case have since vanished from the city council’s archives, leaving subsequent communications with the condominium unknown.
The events trace back to April 23, 2014, when four University of Minho students climbed the wall near the campus in Braga to celebrate a course competition victory. The wall collapsed, tragically killing three students at its base who were also celebrating.
In the criminal proceedings, the four students who climbed the wall were tried for negligent homicide but were acquitted.
The court, contrary to the Public Prosecutor’s accusation, found no evidence of the wall having noticeable and easily detectable cracks and tilt.
Thus, the court stated that the defendants could not have foreseen the collapse caused by their actions.
The victims’ parents subsequently filed a civil lawsuit against the condominium and Braga City Council, seeking 150,000 euros in compensation for each death.
They claimed that both defendants knew of the risk of collapse yet failed to prevent access to the site.
The court’s decision stated that the responsibility for installing mail receptacles lies with the property owners and not the municipality, which has no regulatory or legal obligations concerning them.
The court concluded that if the defendant (condominium) had performed necessary maintenance, the wall would not have been in such a state of disrepair.
Thus, assigning no blame to the students who climbed onto the wall, the court found the condominium guilty of “severe negligence” in failing to properly maintain the wall.
The parents of each victim will receive 100,000 euros for the wrongful death of their children, 10,000 euros for non-material damages suffered by the victims, and 40,000 euros for the non-material damages endured by the parents themselves.
