In a recent decision, the Supreme Court further clarified the conditions under which a missed deadline for filing an objection against an electronic payment order delivered to a data mailbox may or may not be excused. According to the Supreme Court, the fact that a person authorized to access the data mailbox did not receive an email notification of a new message cannot be regarded as a circumstance capable of excusing the failure to meet the deadline.
The case concerned the payment of an outstanding amount for the defendant’s unpaid contributions towards the management of the building and land, as well as services associated with ownership of the apartment. At the claimant’s request, the court issued an electronic payment order and delivered it to the defendant’s data mailbox. The defendant filed an objection against the order, but did not check her data mailbox regularly and therefore missed the deadline. The court consequently rejected the objection as being filed late, stating that the electronic payment order had been duly delivered to the defendant’s data mailbox by operation of the so-called fiction of service.
The defendant subsequently applied for restoration of the missed deadline and appealed against the decision rejecting her objection. She argued that she had not received a notification at the email address provided, alerting her to a new message in the data mailbox. This was allegedly caused by the configuration of the information systems managed for the defendant by an external company. After the appellate court upheld the first-instance decision, the defendant filed an extraordinary appeal with the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court held that an excusable reason for missing a deadline may include not only an event that prevented a party, independently of its will, from taking the required action in time, but also an event attributable to the party that may nevertheless be considered excusable. However, according to the Supreme Court, this cannot include a situation in which an authorized person merely relies on receiving an email notification of a new data message. This applies even more so where the notification was not delivered for reasons attributable to the circumstances of the authorized person, who is responsible for ensuring that messages are retrieved from the data mailbox. The risk of such a notification not being delivered therefore lies with the holder of the data mailbox.
In this context, the Supreme Court also pointed out that neither the loss of login credentials for the data mailbox nor, even less so, the mere failure to receive a notification constitutes an excusable reason. The failure to receive a notification does not in itself prevent the data mailbox from being checked regularly. Regularly checking the contents of the data mailbox is a fundamental part of acting as a professional and prudent businessperson, which the defendant was in the particular case. Based on these conclusions, the Supreme Court therefore rejected the defendant’s appeal.
In light of the established case law confirmed by the above decision, businesses should not underestimate the importance of managing their data mailbox or rely solely on email notifications of incoming messages. The mailbox should also be checked regularly, at least once a week, in order to identify and mitigate potential risks in good time.
