David Messner-Kreuzbauer
Dr.iur.
Researcher (post doc)
Phone
+43 1 4277-29660
Biography
David Messner-Kreuzbauer studied law at the University of Vienna from 2011-2021 (Mag. iur. 2015, Dr. iur. 2021), taking part in an exchange programme with the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (PRC) in 2014. David has been a research assistant of the Institute for European Tort Law since 2015 and a research and teaching assistant of the Centre for European Private Law at the University of Graz 2019-2022. He is involved in several international and interdisciplinary research projects (some of them in leading function). His research stays include visiting fellowships at Harvard Law School (USA) in summer 2019, at Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (France) in spring 2023 and at Keble College, Oxford, for the first half of 2025.
David is fluent in German (native), English and French. He also has advanced knowledge of Chinese.
Main Areas of Research
- Austrian and European tort law
- Comparative law
- Private law
Habilitation Project
Working Title: Addressing uncertainty in private law
David's habilitation project aims to offer a broad perspective on uncertainty in private law. It focuses on selected problems on the intersection of tort, contract and evidence law in the Germanic, English and French legal systems. The burden of proof, presumptions and substantive rules allocating the risk of uncertainty (such as proportional liability for uncertain causation, or interpretation of ambiguous contracts) are at the core of his research.
Selected Publications
Books
- Erlaubte Notstandshandlungen und zivilrechtliche Ausgleichsansprüche (2022)
Selected Articles
- Zentrale Unterschiede im Schadensrecht der Mitgliedsstaaten, in: Bauermeister/Schwamberger (Hrsg), Private Enforcement im Digitalen Binnenmarkt (2025) 59-83
- L’argument de l’«évolution substantielle» en tant qu’héritage du droit international privé d’Albert Armin Ehrenzweig. Continuités de Vienne à Berkeley, Revue critique de droit international privé 2025, 49
- Formmängel in letztwilligen Verfügungen. Absolute Nichtigkeit, Anfechtbarkeit oder beides? Österreichische Notariatszeitung (NZ) 2025, 202 (PDF)
- Das deutsche Haushaltsschadensystem auf dem Prüfstand des Rechtsvergleichs, Versicherungsrecht (VersR) 2024, 393
- Wann gilt ein Irrtum als „durch den anderen veranlasst“ iSd § 871 Abs 1 ABGB?, Österreichisches Juristisches Archiv (ÖJA) 2023, 21 (PDF)
- The Foundations of Civil Liability for Industrial Pollution, Journal of European Tort Law (JETL) 11 (2020) 208. https://doi.org/10.1515/jetl-2020-0142 = Graz Law Working Paper No. 25-2021, SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3994895
- Amtshaftung für Gesetzesvorbereitung durch Verwaltungsorgane, JBl 2017, 205 und 296 (PDF 1, PDF 2)
Edited volumes
- The Revised Product Liability Directive. Open Questions at the Time of Implementation (2026)