In the absence of proof of the employer’s intention to terminate, a claim of ineffectiveness of an oral dismissal must be rejected
The Court of Catania, in its recent judgment no. 2385 of 5 June 2025, reiterated that a claim challenging a dismissal, where the ineffectiveness of the measure is alleged on the grounds that it was communicated orally, places on the employee—pursuant to the general principles set out in Article 2697 of the Italian Civil Code—the burden of proving the constitutive fact of the claim, namely that the termination of the employment relationship is attributable to the employer’s intention to remove the worker.
This ruling aligns with a now well-established line of case law, reaffirming with clarity the governing principles and offering a rigorous application of evidentiary rules.
As is well known, individual dismissal is a unilateral and receptive act subject to a mandatory form requirement: under penalty of ineffectiveness, it must be communicated in writing.
This fundamental principle is unequivocally set out in Article 2 of Law No. 604 of 15 July 1966, which states that “the employer, whether or not an entrepreneur, must notify the employee of the dismissal in writing.”
Written form is required ad substantiam, meaning as an essential requirement for the validity of the termination itself. Its absence results in the most severe legal consequence: the ineffectiveness of the dismissal, as expressly provided for in the third paragraph of the same article.
This means that a dismissal communicated only verbally is considered tamquam non esset—as if it had never occurred—and is therefore entirely incapable of producing the terminating effect on the employment relationship.
The rationale underlying this mandatory rule lies in the need to ensure certainty in legal relationships, to enable the employee to mount a full and informed defense through judicial challenge, and to guarantee that the employer’s decision to terminate is formalized in a clear and permanent manner.
While the substantive legal provision is clear, its practical application raises a crucial procedural issue when the employee turns to the court claiming to have been excluded from the workplace following nothing more than an oral communication.
In this scenario, resolution of the dispute shifts to the evidentiary level, governed by the general rule set out in Article 2697 of the Italian Civil Code, according to which “the party who wishes to assert a right in court must prove the facts on which the claim is based.”
Continue reading the full version published on Il Modulo 24 Contenzioso Lavoro.
Checks must always be carried out in full compliance with the employee’s privacy and dignity.
The use of private investigation agencies can be a potentially very effective tool for companies, allowing them to identify unlawful conduct by their employees, such as the improper use of leave under Law 104/92. However, it is essential to strike a balance between the employer’s need to protect corporate interests and, on the other hand, the employee’s right to dignity and privacy. When resorting to this type of solution, any form of invasive or indiscriminate surveillance must be avoided.”
Furthermore, case law has reiterated that the use of private investigation agencies must be justified by concrete reasons. In fact, an investigation is deemed legitimate only when the employer has well-founded suspicions of an improper use of leave by the employee.
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In Provision No. 288 of May 21, 2025, the Italian Data Protection Authority fined an Italian company €420,000 for unlawful processing of an employee’s personal data later used to justify her dismissal.
The employee filed a complaint against the company, alleging improper use of her personal data extracted from her “Facebook” profile, the “Messenger” app, and certain chats from the “WhatsApp” platform. These data, made known to the company, were used to support two separate disciplinary notices.
In the first notice, dated February 16, 2024, the company quoted the contents of some comments made by the complainant on her Facebook profile, including quoted excerpts and descriptions of certain photos. In the second notice, dated March 21, 2024, it referred to a conversation on Messenger between the complainant and a third party (not employed by the company) who forwarded the conversation to the company via WhatsApp, including quoted excerpts. This second notice also included excerpts from a WhatsApp message the complainant sent to some colleagues on February 22, 2024.
Referring to Article 8 of Law No. 300/1970 (the Italian Workers’ Statute), which prohibits the employer from carrying out investigations – including via third parties – into an employee’s political, religious, or trade union opinions, as well as facts irrelevant to assessing the employee’s professional aptitude, the company claimed it had played no active role in collecting the data. It argued that the information had been reported to it and could therefore be used for disciplinary purposes, as this would not constitute a prohibited investigation under the Workers’ Statute.
The Italian Data Protection Authority used the occasion to recall that:
– The legal system protects the freedom and confidentiality of communications, recognized as fundamental rights, and any limitation is allowed only “by reasoned decision of the judicial authority, in accordance with the law” (Article 15 of the Constitution). This presumption of confidentiality, as clarified by the Constitutional Court, extends to all communication tools made available by technological evolution. (Lawfulness principle)
– The mere publication of data on publicly accessible platforms, such as social networks, does not imply that the data subject has given general consent for the free use of that data for any purpose. A specific legal basis is required for any processing other than the original purpose. (Purpose limitation principle)
– The need for data processing based on legitimate interest – the justification cited by the company in its defense – must also be evaluated under the principle of minimization. The data controller must verify that “the legitimate interest pursued cannot reasonably be achieved through less harmful means for the fundamental rights of data subjects, particularly their right to privacy”. In this case, the company failed to demonstrate that it had assessed the impact of the processing on the employee’s rights or considered less intrusive alternatives, even though the disciplinary measures could have been based on other elements. (Data minimization principle)
The Authority clarified that while it is not tasked with evaluating the disciplinary facts themselves, it is the employer – as the data controller – who must assess not only the lawfulness but also the adequacy, relevance, and proportionality of the data processing to be carried out. The Authority found numerous violations by the company, which, “once it became aware that the transmitted data concerned private communications and comments on a closed Facebook profile, […] should have refrained from using them.”
Other related insights:
Analysis and Implications of Constitutional Court Ruling No. 111/2025, Which Also Introduces a New Factual Variable in Dismissal Litigation: the Employee’s Psycho-Physical Health Status
With ruling No. 111/2025, filed on 18 July 2025, the Constitutional Court delivered a significant decision in labor law, declaring the partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 6, first paragraph, of Law No. 604 of 15 July 1966. The Court found unconstitutional the provision to the extent that it does not allow a worker who is in a state of incapacity of mind at the time of receiving the dismissal notice—or during the 60-day period for extrajudicial challenge—to be exempted from the obligation of prior extrajudicial contestation and to instead challenge the dismissal directly through judicial proceedings (or by requesting conciliation or arbitration) within 240 days from the communication of the dismissal.
To understand the scope of the Constitutional Court’s ruling, it is necessary to outline the regulatory and jurisprudential context in which it is situated.
The core of the legislation is found in Article 6 of Law No. 604 of 15 July 1966. In its current form—shaped by amendments first introduced by Article 32 of Law No. 183/2010 and later by Article 1, paragraph 38, of Law No. 92/2012—the provision structures dismissal challenges as a progressive process, marked by two temporal thresholds:
First Term (Extrajudicial Challenge): The employee must contest the dismissal “under penalty of forfeiture within sixty days of receiving written notice”. The challenge may be made “through any written act, including extrajudicial, suitable to make the employee’s intention known”.
Second Term (Judicial Action): The extrajudicial challenge is considered “ineffective if not followed, within the subsequent one hundred and eighty days, by filing a claim with the labor court registry or by notifying the other party of a request for conciliation or arbitration”.
Failure to comply with even a single one of these deadlines results in the forfeiture of the right to challenge the dismissal and, consequently, in the stabilization of its effects, preventing the employee from seeking either reinstatement or the merely compensatory remedies provided by the special legislation.
The classification of the term as a “forfeiture period” is of crucial importance. Pursuant to Article 2964 of the Italian Civil Code, forfeiture is neither subject to interruption nor suspension, unless otherwise provided. This general principle renders the dismissal challenge period impervious to personal circumstances that would normally suspend the running of time, such as illness. The rationale behind this rule is to require the exercise of a right within a predetermined and brief timeframe, thereby crystallizing an otherwise uncertain legal situation.
The 60-day period (dies a quo) begins from the “receipt” of the dismissal notice. Since dismissal is a unilateral communicative act, its effectiveness and the commencement of the related deadlines are governed by Article 1335 of the Civil Code, which establishes a presumption of knowledge:
“A proposal, acceptance, revocation, or any other declaration addressed to a specific person is deemed known at the moment it reaches the recipient’s address, unless the recipient proves that, without fault, they were unable to have knowledge of it.”
It is precisely the interpretation of this provision that underpins the established jurisprudential orientation.
Indeed, the Supreme Court’s rulings, dating back to early decisions such as Cass. no. 5563 of 1982, have interpreted these rules in a rigorous and formalistic manner, prioritizing legal certainty.
The dominant approach follows the so-called “theory of receipt” or “theory of knowability”. Under this interpretation, what matters for the effectiveness of the act is not the actual knowledge of the recipient, but its mere knowability, which is presumed at the moment the act reaches the recipient’s address.
As a direct consequence, the rebuttal allowed under Article 1335 c.c. (“impossibility of knowledge without fault”) cannot relate to the recipient’s subjective conditions.
As highlighted by the United Sections in the ordinance referring the matter to the Constitutional Court:
“The evidence suitable to overcome the presumption must therefore concern circumstances not related to the recipient’s subjective conditions but to external and objective factors, concerning the connection between the individual and the place of delivery, sufficient to exclude the knowability of the act” (Cass., United Sections, ordinance of 5 September 2024, registered as no. 202/2024).
Therefore, the employee’s incapacity to understand and act (natural incapacity) – being purely subjective and internal – has consistently been considered irrelevant for the running of the forfeiture period. The period starts inexorably from the moment the dismissal letter is delivered, regardless of whether the employee is able to comprehend its content or respond.
The United Sections further excluded the possibility of protecting the incapacitated employee under Article 428 c.c., which governs the annulment of acts carried out by persons lacking capacity. The rationale is that Article 428 c.c. applies to commissive acts (e.g., signing a contract). The failure to challenge a dismissal, instead, is an omissive conduct, a “failure to act” in defense of one’s rights, to which the rule cannot extend.
Jurisprudence has always justified this strict interpretation by balancing the interests at stake. On one side, there is the employee’s right to job stability; on the other, the employer’s interest in continuity and stability of business management. Imposing a short forfeiture period serves this latter interest, preventing organizational decisions from remaining in uncertainty for an extended period. Forfeiture, in this perspective, is not a sanction for inaction, but the objective consequence of failing to meet a procedural obligation designed to protect economic relationships.
In summary, the legal and jurisprudential framework can be described as “rigid”, built on three pillars:
It is precisely against the rigidity of this consolidated system that the ordinance of the United Sections of the Supreme Court is directed. While acknowledging its internal coherence and purpose of certainty, the referring Court questioned its compatibility with fundamental constitutional principles (reasonableness, equality, right to work, right to defense, and right to health) when applied to extreme situations of absolute and blameless incapacity, where the balance of interests is manifestly disproportionate against the employee.
The constitutional question raised by the United Sections of the Supreme Court
The Constitutional Court’s ruling stems from a question raised by the United Sections of the Supreme Court in a case involving an employee dismissed while suffering from a severe illness, leaving her naturally incapable at the time of receipt of the dismissal and during the 60-day extrajudicial challenge period.
The referring judge highlighted that the rigid application of the forfeiture period, insensitive to the employee’s subjective condition, could violate multiple constitutional provisions, including:
The Supreme Court therefore requested the Constitutional Court to issue an additive ruling, making the forfeiture period run not from the receipt of the dismissal, but from the moment the employee regains capacity to understand and act.
Continue reading the full version published at Il Modulo 24 Contenzioso Lavoro.
In its recent Judgment No. 2385 of June 5, 2025, the Court of first instance of Catania reaffirmed that, in cases challenging the validity of a dismissal allegedly communicated orally, the burden of proof lies with the employee, in accordance with the general principles set out in Article 2697 of the Italian Civil Code. The employee must demonstrate the constitutive fact of the claim – that is, that the termination of the employment relationship was the result of the employer’s intent to dismiss the worker.
The case examined by the Court of Catania involved a dispute raised by a Healthcare Assistant (i.e. “OSS”) against a social cooperative. The employee claimed to have been dismissed verbally after being accused of mistreating a patient. According to the employee’s account, the cooperative’s legal representative allegedly told him to “leave” without issuing any formal charge, in breach of Article 7 of the Workers’ Statute (Law No. 300/1970).
The employee asked the court to declare the dismissal null and ineffective, to order reinstatement, and to require the company to pay back and future wages and social security contributions.
The employer, though entering the case late, entirely denied the employee’s version of events. It claimed no dismissal had ever occurred – neither verbal nor written – and that the employee had voluntarily walked off the job after a meeting in which his alleged behavior was discussed. The company argued that the employment relationship was still ongoing, noting that no formal notice of termination had been submitted to the relevant authorities.
Thus, the central legal issue before the Court was the burden of proof regarding the oral dismissal.
The Court of Catania dismissed the employee’s claim, finding that the alleged oral dismissal was not proven.
The decision is based on Article 2697 of the Italian Civil Code, which places the burden of proof on the party asserting the claim. In this case, the judge stated that the employee must prove not just that the employment ended, but that it was due to the employer’s intent to terminate, either explicitly or through conclusive conduct.
The Court highlighted that merely ceasing work is a “neutral fact with multiple interpretations”, which could stem from dismissal, resignation, or mutual agreement. Citing established case law from the Supreme Court (e.g., Judgments No. 3822/2019, No. 13195/2019, and No. 149/2021), the judge stressed that the employee must prove an “employer’s act consciously aimed at removing the worker from the production environment”.
In this case, the Court found that the employee failed to meet this burden of proof, citing:
Ultimately, due to this “evidentiary uncertainty”, the Court rejected the claim. Legal costs were fully offset between the parties due to the case’s complexity and the nature of the parties involved.nale ha rigettato la domanda del lavoratore che non era riuscito a dimostrare il fatto costitutivo della sua pretesa, ossia l’estromissione per volontà datoriale. Le spese di lite sono state integralmente compensate tra le parti in ragione della peculiarità della fattispecie e della natura delle parti in causa.
