District Court awards Elisa Neri 1,940 over incomplete stationery shop shelves

The District Court, presided over by Luke ESQ., found in favour of Elisa Neri in her contract dispute with Davide Bellandi over unfinished shelves for her stationery shop. In the judgment signed on 5 October 2026, the judge awarded Neri 1,940. She had sought repayment of €1,200 from her advance and €180 for temporary display stands.

The formal order does not specify the currency of the award or explain its calculation. The figure exceeds the combined €1,380 sought in the supplied record, but the judgment does not address that difference or allocate the award between repayment and display-stand costs.

The judge found that the agreement initially required completion by 12 September and that the deadline was orally extended to 16 September. That finding resolved the parties' disagreement about the effect of Neri's acceptance of an installation visit on the later date.

The court nevertheless found that the work remained incomplete by the extended deadline. It also found that Bellandi had no justified reason for the delay, deciding the dispute in Neri's favour.

The brief judgment does not identify a statutory provision or explain how it weighed the requested design change, the usefulness of the installed shelves, or Neri's refusal of a follow-up visit. Nor does it separately determine whether the temporary display-stand expense was recoverable.

Neri told the court that an accepted email quotation recorded an agreement for six shelves at a price of €3,000, with a €1,800 advance and completion by 12 September. She said she also had a bank transfer record for the advance. Although she requested softer front edges, she understood this to be a small adjustment rather than a change to the deadline.

According to Neri, four shelves were mounted on 16 September, while two boards were unusable because brackets were missing. She acknowledged using some of the mounted shelves and did not maintain that everything delivered was worthless. She said she refused Bellandi's proposed return on 18 September because the shop was already operating and she had lost confidence after the missed date.

Bellandi submitted that the edge change required him to rework finished pieces and that Neri had agreed to his coming on 16 September. He accepted that he had not clearly agreed a new final completion date and that the work was not fully finished.

Bellandi said four shelves were usable and the remaining two needed only a short visit to fit brackets. He argued that the €1,800 advance fairly reflected the work Neri retained, while acknowledging that the quotation did not assign a separate value to each shelf. He sought dismissal of the repayment claim or a reduction limited to genuinely unfinished work, with no payment for temporary stands.

The dispute arose from an agreement to make and install shelves for Neri's stationery shop in Italy. The hearing focused on the original completion date, the effect of the design change, the condition of the delivered shelves and the proposed return visit.

The recorded outcome is a judgment in Neri's favour based on incomplete performance by the extended deadline. Its scope remains limited by the absence of an explanation for the award's amount and any separate treatment of the retained work or temporary display costs.