Chapter I: Of Contumacy

A cited defendant who without just cause appears neither personally by himself nor through a procurator can be declared contumacious.

§ 1. Nevertheless the judge cannot declare the defendant contumacious unless it has first been established:

1° That the citation, legitimately made, reached the knowledge of the defendant in useful time or at least ought to have reached it.

2° That the defendant neglected to bring an excuse for absence or did not bring a just one.

§ 2. These things can be proved either by a new citation made to the defendant so that he may excuse his contumacy, if he can, or in another way.

§ 1. At the instance of a party or of the promoter of justice or defender of the bond, if they are present in the judgment, the judge can declare the contumacy of the defendant, and when it has been declared, proceed, with the things to be observed having been observed, up to definitive sentence and its execution.

§ 2. If the proceeding goes to definitive sentence, when the litigation has not been joined, the sentence must regard only the things petitioned in the libellus; if the litigation has been joined, the object itself of the joinder of issue.

§ 1. But the judge can also threaten ecclesiastical penalties to break the contumacy of the defendant.

§ 2. But if he wishes to do this, the citation of the defendant must be repeated, with threat of penalties; and then it is not permitted either to declare contumacy or, after it has been declared, to inflict penalties, unless it is proved that this second citation also lacked its effect.

The conclusions and proofs, if any he brings, of a defendant withdrawing from contumacy and presenting himself in judgment before the definition of the cause are to be admitted; but the judge is to take care that the judgment not be protracted in bad faith into longer and unnecessary delays.

But after sentence has been rendered, the contumacious person can petition from the very judge who rendered it the benefit of restitution in integrum for appealing, yet not beyond three months from the intimation of the sentence itself, unless there is question of causes which do not pass into a judged matter.

The rules handed down above also have place when the defendant, although he obeyed the first citation, nevertheless afterward, in the progress of the judgment, becomes contumacious.

If on the day and hour when the defendant, according to the prescription of the citation, first presents himself before the judge, the actor is not present and has brought no excuse or an insufficient excuse for absence, the judge is to cite him again at the instance of the defendant; and if the actor does not obey the new citation or afterward neglects to begin the judgment or to pursue one begun, at the instance of the defendant or of the promoter of justice or defender of the bond, he is to be declared contumacious by the judge, with the same rules which were handed down above for the contumacy of the defendant being observed.

§ 1. The contumacy of the actor declared by the judge perempts the same actor's right of pursuing his instance.

§ 2. Nevertheless the promoter of justice or defender of the bond is permitted to make the instance his own and to pursue it whenever the public good seems to demand this.

§ 3. The defendant, however, thereafter has the right of petitioning either that he may freely depart from the judgment, or that all things done up to that point be held as nothing, or that he himself be definitively absolved from the petition of the actor, or that the judgment, even with the actor absent, be brought to an end.

§ 1. One who has been declared contumacious and has not purged his contumacy, whether he is actor or defendant, is to be condemned both to the expenses of the lawsuit which were made because of his contumacy and also, if there is need, to indemnity to be furnished to the other party.

§ 2. If both the actor and the defendant are contumacious, they are held for the expenses of the lawsuit in solidum.