DENUNCIATION OF A NEW WORK AND OF DREADED DAMAGE. — The actions for the denunciation of a new work and of dreaded damage are two types of judicial actions (deriving respectively from the Romanist institutions of the nunciatio novi operis and the cautio damni infecti) whose purpose is to protect a factual situation, or rather to preserve the equality of the parties in litigation, by ensuring that an innovative activity undertaken by another, or any impending and reasonably apprehended danger, does not cause prejudice to anyone’s rights in immovable property for the benefit of another. This is with a view to a possible future trial in which the balance between the parties would be unjustly altered if the actions examined here were not effective. Their preventive character is therefore manifest.
The purpose and prerequisites of the two actions are different.
The denunciation of a new work may be brought by anyone who, being the owner or possessor of a thing or the holder of a real right, has reason to fear some damage to his thing or right on account of a new work (or also an alteration of an existing work) begun by another. The denunciation of dreaded damage may be brought when the owner or possessor of a thing or the holder of a real right fears damage to that thing or right on account of a building that
threatens to collapse, or on account of a tree or any other thing.
In either case, the person who fears the damage reports the danger to the judge, who, having made a summary examination of the situation, provisionally orders the urgent measures necessary to prevent the danger (e.g., suspension of the work or its continuation subject to security, in the first case; measures to remove the danger or the provision of security, in the second case), leaving the rights of the parties to be determined subsequently in ordinary proceedings.