In Stuttgart, residents living in an environmental and truck transit ban zone must continue to accept the passage of trucks. This has now been decided by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH; VI ZR 110/21). The residents had sued for injunctive relief because a haulage company "violated the no-transit zone several times a day" and they assumed that the passage of HGVs posed a health hazard. Their lawsuit was unsuccessful before the Stuttgart Bad-Cannstatt Local Court and the Stuttgart Regional Court.
The Federal Court of Justice also found that the ban was not intended to reduce the concentration of pollutants in certain streets for local residents. Instead, the ban on trucks driving through the entire city area was ordered "to generally improve air quality and counteract the exceeding of immission limits".
Due to the size of the prohibited zone alone, it cannot be assumed, according to the BGH, that the immissions caused by the HGVs at any point in the prohibited zone pose an immediate risk of exceeding the immission limits for every resident within this zone at their usual place of residence and thus cause a potential health impairment. Therefore, no group of persons can be determined who could be protected by a claim for injunctive relief.
Source: bundesgerichtshof.de/VI ZR 110/21
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