La Sentenza Franzese e la sua applicazione giurisprudenziale negli anni 2002-2010

This thesis concerns the criminal liability of the doctor and brings more clearly into focus the causal connection between the actions or omissions without malice aforethought performed by the doctor and the detrimental or deadly event suffered by the patient. The question at issue has been largely debated by the United Sections of the Criminal Court that pronunced itself on the well-known leading case Franzese in 2002. In the first instance, I ana-lyse the most important and innovative profiles of this pronunciation, trying to highlight the critical points. The thesis’s central part consists in examining the jurisprudence of the Criminal Court of Cassation from 2002 to 2010, in order to verify whether the principles dictated by the United Sections have been incorporated and applied in point of fact both by the Court of legitimacy and by that of merits. It must be underlined that, in spite of the fact that some sentences have made use of those principles actually and essentially, there are others that have made only a simple and formal reference to those principles, diminishing substantially their practical application. In addition to the case law analysis, I give an account of the most in-fluential doctrinal contributions. These are useful for forecasting the nearest future developments of this subject.