Facts
On July 3, 2013, A. (the plaintiff, the appellant) filed a claim against B. SA (the defendant, the respondent) with the Labor Court of Zurich for the payment of six months' salary as compensation for wrongful dismissal and for the supplementation of the employment reference.
The Labor Court dismissed the claim on March 11, 2014. Against this, the plaintiff filed an appeal with the Cantonal Court of Zurich on May 19, 2014, which she submitted to the Labor Court. The Cantonal Court, by decision of June 24, 2014, did not enter into the appeal due to delay, as the 30-day appeal period had expired on May 19, 2014.
The appellant requested the Federal Court to set aside the decision of the Cantonal Court and to determine that the appeal was filed in a timely manner. Alternatively, the time limit for filing an appeal should be restored.
Considerations
The Federal Court states that the Swiss Civil Procedure Code (CPC) does not contain a regulation on the preservation of time limits when filing a legal remedy with an incompetent authority. In contrast, Art. 48 para. 3 of the Federal Act on the Federal Court (FCA) provides for such a regulation.
The Federal Court considers it justified to apply this general principle of procedure analogously to the legal remedies of the CPC. However, it must be taken into account that an overly broad provision on the preservation of time limits with a corresponding obligation of the authorities to forward the case could be problematic due to the different cantonal court organizations.
Therefore, the Federal Court limits the application of this principle to the case where the legal remedy was inadvertently filed with the court of…