Disciplinary dismissal and provision thereof in the applicable CCNL (National Collective Bargaining Agreement)

With its judgement no. 21062 of 11 September 2017, the Court of Cassation has delivered an opinion on the issue of just cause for dismissal previously confirmed by the Court of first instance of Campobasso, later overturned by the Court of Appeal, which instead found the dismissal legitimate as the facts in question were proportionate to the disciplinary measure adopted. More specifically, the Court of Cassation reiterated that a court, in assessing the grounds for dismissal, shall not be bound by the typical instances of just cause set forth in the collective agreement, as it must assess the seriousness of the facts in question, the circumstances in which they have occurred and the intensity of the intentional profile, and maintained that a court in any case cannot make an autonomous evaluation of the seriousness of a behaviour considered by the collective agreement a disciplinary violation that corresponds to a disciplinary action short of termination. In essence, in order for a worker to be disciplinarily dismissed, it is necessary that the conduct at hand is not subject to a disciplinary action short of termination according to the collective agreement.