The recent ruling by the Constitutional Court (No. 77 of April 19, 2018) did not exempt the employee from the reimbursement of legal fees to the counterpart in the case of losing the case.
Reading the newspapers and surfing the internet, we came across the news that the losing party would no longer be required to pay the legal fees due to the employer against whom he acted judicially. This is because the Constitutional Court, with sentence no. 77 of 19 April 2018, declared the unconstitutionality of article 92 of the Civil Code, in the part in which it does not consider the worker who is accusing the employer of illegitimate activity as a weak party and is therefore not required to reimburse expenses to the counterpart if the claims made by him are groundless.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The above was the opinion of the CGIL, whose intervention was even declared inadmissible, as well as the Court of Reggio Emilia, from which the Constitutional Court has expressly departed, declaring the question of constitutional legitimacy of the issue unjustified and accepting only the different lines of reasoning in common with the Court of Turin.
But let’s take a step back, reminding ourselves that the regulation of court costs in civil proceedings should not be left to the discretion of the judge, responding to the general rule victus victori set by article 91, first paragraph, the Civil Code in the part in which – repeating the similar requirement of article 370, first paragraph, of the Civil Code of 1865 – states that “”the judge, with the sentence that closes the trial before him, condemns the unsuccessful party to the reimbursement of expenses in favour of the other party and settles the amount together with defence fees&rdquo
