Court case 5 O 151/19 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2021)

Facts pending decision. Questions referred: 1. In the light of recital 85 and the third sentence of recital 146 of the GDPR, is the concept of ‘non-material damage’ in Article 82(1) of the GDPR to be understood as covering any impairment of the protected legal position, irrespective of the other effects and materiality of that impairment? 2. Is liability for compensation under Article 82(3) of the GDPR excluded by the fact that the infringement is attributed to human error in the individual case on the part of a person acting under the authority of the processor or controller within the meaning of Article 29 of the GDPR? 3. Is it permissible or necessary to base the assessment of compensation for non-material damage on the criteria for determining fines set out in Article 83 of the GDPR, in particular in Article 83(2) and 83(5) of the GDPR? 4. Must the compensation be determined for each individual infringement, or are several infringements – or at least several infringements of the same nature – penalised by means of an overall amount of compensation, which is not determined by adding up individual amounts but is based on an evaluative overall assessment?