The Court of Cassation changed its prevailing stance on the compensation effect of the present missed challenge of dismissal, determining that if the judge can no longer ascertain whether or not the dismissal is legitimate, he must consider preservation of compensation also blocked. Breach indeed constitutes a precondition of compensation due by the defaulting contracting party pursuant to art. 1218 of the Italian Civil Code. The impossibility of said ascertainment rules out the possibility to reconnect the compensating obligation in favour of the worker to the alleged breach of the employer. This is true regardless of the individual or collective nature of the dismissal. The case examined by the Court regarded a group of workers that had applied to the Court for the Company that had employed them to be sentenced to indemnify and compensate for the damage pursuant to art. 18 of the workers’ statute of rights or, subordinately and alternative, to compensate the damage deriving from the dismissal according to the ordinary civil law principles. These workers however had not challenged the dismissal within the terms set forth in the regulations on the subject (impugnment that the special laws contemplate must be carried out within 60 days from notification of the dismissal).
