Worker’s recidivism also taken into account for purposes of correct legal classification of conduct within context of just cause for dismissal.
The Italian Court of Cassation, Employment Division, with judgment no. 15140 of 30 May 2023, returned to deal with the dismissal for just cause of a worker on a fixed-term contract for repeated negligence in the performance of the work, having been found to be recidivist in the negligent conduct, and who had already been sanctioned by disciplinary suspension.
The Court of Appeal, confirming the first instance judgment, rejected the appeal of the former employee, considering the existence of just cause underlying the dismissal imposed by the employer.
The first instance judgment was based on an assessment of the seriousness of the conduct and the proportionality of the sanction, with reference both to the provisions of the applicable collective agreement and to the employee’s specific recidivism.
The worker appealed to the Italian Court of Cassation, asking the court to overturn the judgment on the basis, among other things, of erroneous or misapplication of mandatory rule of law, to the extent that the dismissal fell within the case of dismissal ‘for poor performance’, and therefore a justified subjective reason and not ‘for just cause’.
The Italian Court of Cassation, in its reasoning rejecting the worker’s appeal, referred to its consistent case law according to which the assessment of the seriousness and proportionality of the conduct are the responsibility of the over-reaching and investigative activity of the Judge on the merits, which must refer on the one hand to the actual facts of the case, of an objective and subjective nature, and, on the other hand, the weighting carried out by the collective bargaining agreement. This is because ‘the scale of values expressed by the collective partners must constitute one of the parameters to which reference must be made to fill in the general clause of Article 2119 of the Italian Civil Code’.
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