Court of appeal lawyer Paris

Unless a provision makes it run from the date of the judgment, the time limit starts from service of the judgment, and it runs even against the party that had it served (Article 528). The document must state clearly how long the remedy remains open and how to exercise it (Article 680). Where this requirement is not met, the Court of Cassation holds that “the absence, or the erroneous statement, in the document serving a judgment, of the available remedy, of its time limit or of its conditions means that the time limit for the remedy does not start to run” (our translation) (Cass. 2e civ., 3 July 2025, No. 23-13.202).

In that case, the document of service announced a time limit of fifteen days when another time limit applied. The court of appeal had declared the appeal out of time by recalculating the correct time limit itself. The Court of Cassation set the judgment aside: the error in the document prevented the time limit from running.

The protection has a limit. If the judgment has not been served within two years of its delivery, the party that appeared can no longer bring a principal challenge, where the decision has ended the dispute or closed the proceedings (Article 528-1). The firm reads the document of service line by line before saying whether a time limit is open or has expired.

The court registry sends the respondent a copy of the notice of appeal together with the obligation to appoint a lawyer; failing that, the appellant has it served, and the document warns the respondent that, if no lawyer is appointed within fifteen days, a judgment may be given on the opponent's material alone (Article 902). Once the appellant's submissions have been served, the respondent has three months to file its own and, where appropriate, to bring a cross-appeal or an appeal prompted by another appeal (appel provoqué) (Article 909); on the fast track, this time limit is two months (Article 906-2).

This time limit is enforced by inadmissibility, raised by the court of its own motion, and the Court of Cassation applies it strictly. It has held that “where the respondent does not file submissions within the required time from service of the submissions in the principal appeal, it may validly file submissions, on the occasion of a cross-appeal subsequently brought by another party, only against that party and not against the author of the principal appeal” (our translation) (Cass. 2e civ., 9 June 2022, No. 20-15.827). The respondent co-owners' association, which had let its time limit pass, could no longer reply to the principal appellant.

The respondent may bring a cross-appeal against the appellant as well as against the other respondents (Article 548). From receipt of the notice of appeal, the firm identifies the heads of the judgment that are against you and prepares this cross-appeal in the first submissions.

Yes. The text requires the appellant to state, in the final part of its submissions, whether it wants the judgment reversed or annulled, and to list the points challenged in the case of reversal; the court rules only on the claims set out in the operative part (Article 954). Asking in the operative part for the opponent to be ordered to pay is not enough.

The Court of Cassation has held as follows: “where the appellant seeks, in the operative part of its submissions, neither reversal of the heads of the judgment it wants set aside nor annulment of the judgment, the court of appeal can only confirm the judgment” (our translation) (Cass. 2e civ., 20 May 2021, No. 19-22.316). It nevertheless set aside the judgment under appeal because the appeal had been brought before this requirement was first stated in a published judgment, in September 2020; applying it to that appeal would have deprived the appellants of a fair trial.

That tolerance has disappeared with time: for an appeal brought today, the omission leads to confirmation of the judgment, however good the argument. The firm drafts the operative part first and checks that it covers every head challenged.

Where the appeal seeks annulment of the judgment, devolution operates in full (Article 562): a court that annuls must in principle rule on the dispute itself. This places an obligation on the appellant, who must set out all its claims on the merits from its first submissions (Article 915-2).

The Court of Cassation has drawn a consequence that is unfavourable to an appellant who relies on nullity alone: “an appellant who seeks annulment of the judgment, on a ground other than the irregularity of the document initiating the proceedings, must submit in the alternative on the merits” (our translation) (Cass. 2e civ., 7 March 2024, No. 22-11.804). Having failed to do so, the court of appeal could only confirm the judgment, and the appeal to the Court of Cassation was dismissed.

The right structure is therefore to seek annulment as the principal claim, then reversal and the orders sought in the alternative. The firm never brings an appeal limited to a defect of form where the merits remain in dispute.

An urgent-application order may be appealed within fifteen days, unless it comes from the First President or was given in last resort (Article 490). The appeal is then fixed on the fast track by the presiding judge of the chamber (Article 906). This track often concerns the eviction of a tenant, an interim payment claimed by a landlord or urgent works in a building.

The time limits are shorter here. The appellant serves the notice of appeal within twenty days of receiving the notice fixing the fast-track hearing, on pain of lapse, or notifies it to the respondent's lawyer if the respondent has already appointed one, a copy of the notice being attached in every case (Article 906-1). The appellant then files its submissions with the registry within two months of receiving that notice, and the respondent has two months from their service to reply (Article 906-2). These time limits apply to appeals brought from 1 September 2024 (Decree of 29 December 2023, Article 16).

Under the former text, which imposed ten days, the Court of Cassation held that time limit to be consistent with the right of access to a court, on the ground that it “is intended to allow certain cases to be judged on a fast track” (our translation) (Cass. 2e civ., 9 September 2021, No. 19-25.187). The lapse of the appeal was upheld, a result unfavourable to the appellant. The firm starts service as soon as the notice fixing the hearing is received.

An appeal against the orientation judgment is brought, prepared and decided under the fixed-day procedure, without the appellant having to show a risk of harm; where the judgment orders sale by auction, the court rules no later than one month before the scheduled date (Article R. 322-19 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures). The appellant files an application with the First President, setting out its submissions on the merits and referring to the supporting documents (Article 918).

Failure to supply the documents does not close the route of appeal. The Court of Cassation has held that “where the supporting documents mentioned in Article 918 of the Code of Civil Procedure were not supplied when the application was filed with the First President, the appeal is not inadmissible but the court of appeal, at the hearing, may, including of its own motion, exclude those documents from the proceedings” (our translation) (Cass. 2e civ., 20 November 2025, No. 22-19.710). The judgment that had declared the appeal inadmissible was set aside.

The solution protects the appeal but not the case file: documents that are excluded can no longer support the debtor's or the creditor's challenge. The firm files the application with all the documents numbered, on a timetable compatible with the date of the auction.

The time limit is fifteen days from service of the decision, and the appeal is handled under the fast-track or fixed-day procedure (Article R. 121-20 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures). It covers in particular challenges to seizures, protective measures or eviction.

A second service does not reopen the time limit. The Court of Cassation has held that “where a judgment is served twice, the first valid service starts the time limits for challenge” (our translation) (Cass. 2e civ., 13 January 2022, No. 20-12.914). The judgment had been served by the court registry by registered letter, receipt of which the addressee had acknowledged: the appeal brought two years later was out of time, and the appeal to the Court of Cassation was dismissed, a result unfavourable to the appellant.

The firm therefore looks for the very first valid service, by the registry or by a commissaire de justice, and never relies on the last one received.

Before a court in mainland France, the time limit for appeal is extended by two months for persons living abroad, and by one month for those living in certain overseas territories (Article 643). The ordinary one-month time limit thus becomes three months.

The Court of Cassation reads this rule broadly for companies. It holds that “A company whose registered office is abroad is resident abroad within the meaning of the first of those provisions, even if it is represented in France by a general agent domiciled in France” (our translation) (Cass. 2e civ., 21 December 2023, No. 21-21.140). The judgment that had refused the extension to an insurer established in Gibraltar was set aside.

This extension does not apply to every time limit. It does not apply to referral to the court of remittal after cassation, since the proceedings then continue before that court (Cass. 2e civ., 4 February 2021, No. 19-23.638). The firm calculates each time limit separately for a party established outside France.

Yes, but on one condition: persons who were not parties at first instance may be summoned before the court, even to be ordered to pay, where the development of the dispute makes it necessary to bring them in (Article 555). The principle remains the double degree of jurisdiction; the exception must be justified.

The Court of Cassation defines this development: “the development of the dispute requiring a third party to be brought in before the court of appeal is characterised by the revelation of a circumstance of fact or law arising from the judgment or after it and altering the legal data of the dispute” (our translation) (Cass. 1re civ., 14 May 2025, No. 23-21.806). It approved the joinder of a company that coveted the same shares as another company, the proceedings begun after the urgent-application order having revealed their interdependence. The judgment was set aside on another point, with no effect on this solution.

An element known from the first instance is not enough. The firm examines what the judgment or later events have revealed before summoning a third party into the proceedings, that third party in turn having a time limit to file submissions (Article 910).

The parties restate in their last submissions the claims and grounds previously presented; failing that, they are deemed to have abandoned them, and the court rules only on the last submissions filed (Article 954). Each set of submissions must therefore be complete.

The obligation also binds the court. In a dispute between a landlord and its tenant, the Court of Cassation recalled: “It follows from this text that the judge must rule on the last submissions filed” (our translation) (Cass. 3e civ., 5 March 2026, No. 23-23.489). The court of appeal had ruled on the basis of earlier submissions, without taking into account those that developed the argument on the admissibility of the new claims; the judgment was set aside.

The omission opens a ground of appeal to the Court of Cassation, but it prolongs the case. The firm checks that each set of submissions has actually been filed electronically and, on receiving the judgment, which submissions it expressly refers to.

The declaration of referral must be made within two months of service of the Court of Cassation's judgment, on pain of inadmissibility raised by the court of its own motion; failing that, the first-instance judgment acquires the force of res judicata where the judgment set aside had been given on appeal (Article 1034). The service must state this time limit and the ways of referring the case (Article 1035).

The Court of Cassation recalls that “the document serving the Court of Cassation's judgment must, on pain of nullity, state very prominently the time limit referred to in the first paragraph of Article 1034 and the ways in which the court of remittal may be seised” (our translation) (Cass. 2e civ., 5 March 2026, No. 23-14.626). In that case, the document was valid, and the referral made more than four months later was declared out of time: the appeal to the Court of Cassation was dismissed, a result unfavourable to the party that had delayed.

Before the court of remittal, the pre-hearing phase resumes in the state of the proceedings not affected by the cassation (Article 631), and new claims follow the rules on appeal (Article 633): “before the court of appeal to which a case is referred after cassation, new claims are admissible if they pursue the same ends as those submitted to the first judge, even if their legal basis is different, or if they are ancillary to them, a consequence of them or a necessary complement to them” (our translation) (Cass. 2e civ., 28 March 2024, No. 22-13.419). The firm prepares the declaration of referral as soon as service is received.

Yes. The notice of appeal may include an annex and must, on pain of nullity, list the points of the judgment that are challenged, unless the appeal seeks its annulment (Article 901). The annex is useful where the list of heads challenged is long.

The Court of Cassation has set aside an overly formal reading: “The fact that the notice of appeal does not expressly refer to an annex setting out the heads of judgment challenged cannot give rise to nullity of the document under Article 114 of the Code of Civil Procedure, nor result in the appeal having no devolutive effect” (our translation) (Cass. 2e civ., 20 November 2025, No. 24-15.384). The court of appeal had held the appeal to have no devolutive effect because the notice did not mention its annex; the judgment was set aside.

For an appeal brought from September 2024 (Decree of 29 December 2023, Article 16), an error in this list can still be corrected in the operative part of the appellant's first submissions, if they are filed in time (Article 915-2). The firm nevertheless drafts the notice and its annex so as to make this fix unnecessary.