The Supreme Corte di Cassazione, with the sentence n. 8473/2019, ruled about the mediation attempt envisaged, under penalty of inadmissibility of the judicial request by the art. 8 of Legislative Decree n. 28 of 2010.
In the face of the consolidated orientation, according to which the litigants must appear in person at the preliminary mediation meeting, the aforementioned hermeneutical address also recognized the power to “be replaced by a substantial representative, possibly in the person of the same defender who assists in the mediation process, provided it has a special special substantive power of attorney, which does not fall within the lawyer's powers of authenticity even if the power is conferred on the same professional ": the appearance in the mediation - argue the Supreme Court – it is not a strictly personal act, for which, in the absence of an express provision in the matter, it must be considered an activity that can be delegated to others.
Also, the Cassazione, departing from the interpretative principles elaborated by the judges of merit, has established that the burden of the party that intends to take legal action (or that, having acted, has been seen to oppose the failed prior experiment of mediation and has been remitted before the mediator from the judge) to proceed with the obligatory mediation can be considered already realized “at the end of the first meeting before the mediator, if one or both parties, requested by the mediator after having been adequately informed about the mediation, communicate their unwillingness to proceed beyond ", it is not necessary, therefore, that the parties try to discuss and then, in the minutes, acknowledge the impossibility of reaching a positive solution.