Dismissal on exceeding the maximum number of sickness absence days

The Court of Cassation, with judgment No. 284 dated 10 January 2017, intervened on the subject of dismissal on exceeding the maximum number of sickness absence days by primarily stating that the calculation must not consider the afternoons during which the worker is subjected to specific medical treatment, when the worker, on a part time basis, has duly performed his/her activities in the morning. In addition, the Court stated – thus following an almost consolidated trend – that this type of dismissal is equivalent to a dismissal for justified objective grounds and not to a disciplinary dismissal. Therefore, it does not need a detailed description of all the elements related to the reasons underlying it (listing of each day of absence, since the total number of absences in a given time period is sufficient). All this without prejudice to the burden by the employer to prove before the Court the facts underlying the dismissal measure. In the same judgment, the Court of Cassation also noted that sending to the employer an illness certificate that covers the workdays during the period when the employee is on holiday leads to a change in the title of absence with their consequent relevance for the calculation of the number of sickness absence days.