Con Judgment no. 1492 of 22 January 2026, the Third Civil Section of the Court of Cassation has once again addressed a topic that continues to generate considerable uncertainty in compensation litigation: the The relationship between moral damage and personalisation of biological damage.
The pronunciation is worth noting because it addresses an error frequently encountered in judicial practice: using the criteria developed by case law for the personalisation of biological damage in order to assess moral damage.
Judgment no. 1492/2026 doesn't introduce entirely new principles but It deserves credit for bringing order to a subject where conceptual overlaps are frequent.
The Supreme Court's message is clear: Moral damage and the personalisation of biological damage are distinct concepts and cannot be confused..
Personalisation concerns the exceptional consequences that the injury produces in the concrete life of the person; moral damage, on the other hand, concerns the inner suffering that that injury causes.
Applying the criteria of one to the other means using inappropriate legal tools and risking the disruption of the correct balance in the assessment of non-pecuniary damage.
This is precisely the error that the Supreme Court identified and corrected with the ruling under comment.
The case
The dispute concerned a road traffic accident in which the injured party had suffered permanent after-effects assessed at 28%.
The Court had awarded compensation for biological damage and recognised a relatively modest sum for moral damage.
The Court of Appeal had upheld this decision, considering that the limited increase recognised by the first judge constituted a correct exercise of the power to individualise damages and recalling the now established principle that an increase on standard values requires proof of particularly serious, unusual or exceptional consequences.
The Supreme Court, however, deemed this reasoning to be erroneous.
The Court of Appeal's error
The most interesting part of the decision is the one in which the Supreme Court precisely identifies the flaw in the challenged judgment.
According to the supreme court judges, the Court of Appeal addressed the issue using the wrong legal category.
The principle invoked by the territorial court – according to which the standard measure of damages can only be increased in the presence of exceptional or peculiar consequences – indeed concerns the personalisation of non-pecuniary damage.
However, the issue submitted for your examination was different and concerned moral damage.
For this reason, the Supreme Court states that the trial judge carried out an “incoherent and incorrect review” of the ground of appeal concerning the criterion for determining moral damages as an autonomous component of non-pecuniary damages.
It is certainly useful to reproduce the motivational passage of the ruling in full:
The Court of Appeal dismissed this ground of appeal, holding that the limited increase awarded by the court of first instance by way of compensation for non-pecuniary damage constituted a legitimate and correct exercise of the power to adjust the award for biological damage upwards in respect of “abnormal or entirely peculiar” consequences; In this regard, it referred to the principle established by the Court of Cassation in judgment no. 28988 of 11 November 2019, according to which the standard amount of compensation may be increased only in the presence of exceptional consequences that have been specifically alleged and proven. In so reasoning, the appeal judge carried out an inconsistent and erroneous examination of the alleged breach of law concerning the criterion for determining non-pecuniary damage, as an independent component of non-pecuniary loss. Although the appellant, in setting out the ground of appeal, had also erroneously referred to the concept of “personalisation” of the damage – which is in fact entirely inappropriate, as it relates exclusively to biological damage and does not apply to non-pecuniary damage, which, where the conditions are met, must be assessed separately, in accordance with paragraph 2(e) of Article 138 itself (see Court of Cassation 9 December 2024, No. 31684, Rv. 672982; see also Court of Cassation 15/11/2022, No. 15924, in the grounds, paragraphs 5.1 and 5.2) – the error committed by the Court of Appeal nevertheless appears to be significant and admissibly raised in this instance, as it involves the incorrect exercise by the appeal judge of the power/duty to independently classify the ground of appeal in law (which is not precluded by any erroneous framing of the ground of appeal on the part of the appellant) and given that the statement of the ground of appeal, as set out in the case file, made it clear overall that the basis of the challenge lay in the failure to give adequate consideration to non-pecuniary damage. Such damage, in fact, had to be and must be assessed in the light of Article 138(2)(e) of the Insurance Code and the principles established by the Court of Cassation in its judgment No. 901 of 17 January 2018 (to which, among others, Cass. 27 March 2018, No. 7513; 28 September 2018, No. 23469; 31 January 2019, No. 2788; 10 November 2020, No. 25164; 9 December 2024, No. 31684), according to which non-pecuniary damage, understood as mental suffering, retains its own ontological autonomy from biological damage and – where established following an assessment to be carried out on a case-by-case basis and avoiding impermissible automatisms, and for this purpose taking into account all necessary means of proof, including matters of common knowledge, rules of experience and presumptions – must be awarded in addition to the latter, including on the basis of standard scales. Nor can there be any doubt that the erroneous legal approach adopted by the court of first instance to the issue before it has a significant impact on the outcome of the decision.
Perhaps the most significant passage of the ruling is where the Court observes that the concept of personalisation is:
“completely inappropriate, as it pertains exclusively to biological damage and is not applicable with reference to moral damage”.
This is a particularly clear statement, likely to become a key legal precedent on the subject.
Moral damage and biological damage are not the same thing.
Starting from this premise, the Court of Cassation reiterates a principle already affirmed in numerous previous decisions: moral damage retains its own autonomy with respect to biological damage.
The internal suffering of the injured party represents a different prejudice compared to the dynamic-relational limitations resulting from the damage to health.
For this reason, moral damage cannot be absorbed into the assessment of biological damage, nor can it be subordinated to the demonstration of the same circumstances required for personalisation.
According to the Court:
“Moral damage, understood as inner suffering, retains its own ontological autonomy from biological damage”.
It follows that, if ascertained, it must be settled in addition to non-pecuniary damage.
The proof of moral damage
The judgment also offers some useful indications on the evidentiary level.
The Court reiterates that moral damages must be pleaded and proven by the injured party, but clarifies that such proof can also be established through presumptions, rules of experience, and notorious facts.
In this context, the severity of the injury is significant.
Recalling now established precedents, the Court of Cassation observes, in fact, that the more serious the injury to health, the more reasonable it is to presume the existence of corresponding inner suffering.
Naturally, this does not mean introducing any automatic compensation, but simply recognising that the severity of biological damage can constitute a significant presumptive element for the purposes of assessing moral damage.
Concluding remarks
Judgment no. 1492/2026 does not introduce entirely new principles, but it has the merit of restoring order to a subject where conceptual overlaps are frequent.
The Court of Cassation's message is clear: moral damage and the personalisation of biological damage are separate concepts and cannot be confused.
Personalisation concerns the exceptional consequences that the injury produces in the concrete life of the person; moral damage, on the other hand, concerns the inner suffering that that injury causes.
Applying the criteria of one to the other means using inappropriate legal tools and risking the disruption of the correct balance in the assessment of non-pecuniary damage.
This is precisely the error that the Supreme Court identified and corrected with the ruling under comment.
