Facts
By judgment of January 13, 2010, the Civil Court of the Vaud Cantonal Tribunal partially upheld a claim for damages following a road traffic accident. This judgment was not pronounced at a hearing. On February 19, 2010 and January 6, 2011, respectively, the Cantonal Tribunal sent all parties a written dispositif and then a reasoned dispatch.
Against this judgment, the Federal Tribunal is seized of two civil appeals, one filed by the plaintiff and the other by the defendants. At this stage of the case, the parties have not been invited to file their responses.
The First Civil Law Division of the Federal Tribunal deliberated in public on March 22, 2011. Called upon to settle a legal issue concerning several courts, it suspended the case pending a joint decision of the courts concerned.
A joint decision of the two civil law divisions was made on March 31, 2011.
Considerations
The First Civil Law Division ruled that the appeals are admissible under Art. 75(1) LTF. It considered that the decisive communication under Art. 405(1) CPC occurred in 2010 with the sending of the written dispositif, even though the reasoned dispatch was not sent until 2011. It follows that the judgment is not subject to the appeal provided for in Art. 308 CPC and that the two civil appeals are admissible under Art. 75(1) LTF.
The Court emphasized that the communication referred to in Art. 405(1) CPC is an autonomous concept of federal law, which may occur by handing down a dispositif at the hearing, by notification of a written dispositif or by notification of a reasoned dispatch,…