It has been a while since the Supreme Court has established that the appeal judgment must indeed is a case of mandatory joinder, which means that all the parties who participated to the judgement of first instance must take part in the appeal judgment whenever there is a concrete risk of conflicting rulings.
When the Court is going to issue a ruling which concerns multiple parties, either for substantial or for procedural reasons, the participation of all said parties to the judgment becomes essential. In fact, if one of the parties is absent, the judge orders that it is brought to trial within a fixed deadline (art. 102 of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure).
Such regime, prescribed by the law raises a question: if the ruling issued by the court of first instance is notified only to some of the parties of the judgment, either by choice or by mistake, can the Court of Appeals issue the ruling anyways? Or should it be considered a case of mandatory joinder and…
