The Appeal Application: Cassation Ordinance No. 15880/2025 Clarifies the Limits of Art. 345 c.p.c.

The Italian civil process is governed by principles aimed at ensuring the efficiency and correctness of judgments. One of these concerns the possibility of introducing new claims on appeal. The Ordinance of the Court of Cassation No. 15880 of June 13, 2025, offers a fundamental clarification, distinguishing between "new" claims (inadmissible) and "different but substitutive" claims (admissible). A crucial ruling for procedural strategy.

Art. 345 c.p.c.: The Prohibition of Novelty

Article 345, paragraph 1, of the c.p.c. establishes that new claims cannot be made on appeal. This prohibition protects the double degree of judgment, preventing the introduction of issues extraneous to the first instance. Its interpretation, however, has often required clarifying interventions from case law.

The Key Distinction: Addition vs. Substitution

Ordinance No. 15880/2025 (rapporteur S. G. Guizzi) consolidates an essential interpretative principle:

A new claim on appeal is only one that, like the claims exceptionally and expressly admitted by art. 345, paragraph 1, second period, c.p.c., is added to the main claim, whereas "different" claims that substitute the original ones, being in an alternative relationship to them, cannot be considered new and are therefore admissible, due to the need to maximize the scope of judicial intervention, so as to prevent parties from returning to court again in relation to the same substantive matter. (In this case, the S.C. excluded that, with respect to the claim made in the first instance, in which the right to the disclosure of the name of the "new" beneficiary of a life insurance policy had been founded by the plaintiff on their original appointment and on the invalidity of the subsequent designation, the claim founded on the quality of forced heir and on the need to assert the consequent inheritance rights on the forced share constituted an inadmissible new claim, as, apart from its questionable novelty, the claim had substituted, and not added to, the original one).

The Court of Cassation distinguishes: only a claim that is "added" to the original claim is inadmissible. Instead, "different" claims that "substitute" it are admissible, even with a different legal basis, provided that the substantive objective remains the same. This is to "maximize judicial intervention" and avoid new disputes. The example of the life insurance policy and the forced heir illustrates this difference well.

Practical Implications

• Legal Strategy: It is fundamental to distinguish between addition and substitution for the admissibility of the claim.
• Procedural Economy: It favors the complete resolution of disputes in the same proceeding, reducing new litigation.
• Protection of Rights: It allows rights to be asserted even with an evolved legal basis, if the substantive objective remains unchanged.

Conclusions

Ordinance No. 15880/2025 offers a clear criterion for the application of art. 345 c.p.c. This balance between formal rigor and substantive flexibility promotes more effective justice, streamlining proceedings and ensuring complete judicial protection.