In ruling no. 26246 of 6 September 2022, the Court of Cassation resolved the legal contrast about the statute of limitations start date for employee claims in companies with more than 15 employees, clarifying that, after Law no. 92/2012 ( “Fornero Reform”), the statute of limitations no longer starts during the employment relationship.
Some employees of a company with the size requirements under Art. 18 of the Workers’ Statute brought an action before the Employment Tribunal to obtain recognition of their right to receive remuneration differences, exceeding the five-year statute of limitations for overtime night work performed.
The Court of First Instance of Brescia dismissed the applicants’ claims, ruling that, even after the amendments to Art. 18 of the Workers’ Statute introduced by the Fornero Reform, the employment relationship continues to be protected by real protection, which entails the statute of limitations period starting during the employment relationship.
The Brescia Court of Appeal upheld the Court of First Instance’s decision, denying the claimants’ right to the differences exceeding the five-year statute of limitations.
With a single ground of appeal, the employees challenged the appeal ruling alleging breach of Articles 2935, and 2948, no. 4 of the Italian Civil Code, 18 Law no. 300/1970, 36 of the Italian Constitution, by the local Court, based on the Constitutional Court’s rulings no. 62 of 1966, no. 143 of 1969, no. 174 of 1972) and the Supreme Court case law, which confirmed the validity of the relationship stability regime despite the amendment of the regulation on dismissals with the reforms of Law no. 92/2012 and Legislative Decree no. 23/2015 ( “Jobs Act”).
The Supreme Court of Cassation, in upholding the appeal brought by the employees, preliminarily ruled that, in line with the constitutionally oriented interpretation of Art. 2948, no. 4 of the Italian Civil Code, the statute of limitations starts during the employment relationship only when reinstatement is the foreseeable penalty “against any unlawful termination.”
According to the Supreme Court, the changes made by the Fornero Reform and Jobs Act to the regulation on dismissals eliminated this stability. This determined the change from an automatic application of reinstatement protection to every case of dismissal illegitimacy to a selective application of the protections.
On these assumptions, the Supreme Court ruled, that the open-ended employment, as regulated by the Fornero Reform and Jobs Act, lacks the prerequisites of predetermined terminations and their adequate protection, and is not assisted by a stability regime.
This means that the rights that are not lapsed at the time of the entry into force of Law no. 92/2012 (18 July 20012), are subject to a statute of limitations which starts from the employment termination, including for employees of companies meeting the size requirements under Art. 18 of the Workers’ Statute.
Other related insights:
In ruling no. 9800 of 25 March 2022, the Court of Cassation ruled that – if the notice referred to in Art. 4, paragraph 9, Law no. 223/1991 for the collective dismissal procedure does not correctly specify the criteria for the selection of the workers concerned, the procedure is unlawful and, consequently, the dismissal must be annulled.
The Court of Appeal of Reggio Calabria, reforming the first instance ruling, declared the collective dismissal announced by the employer company to the appellants by means of a notice under art. 4, paragraph 9, Law 223/1991, unlawful.
The local Court declared the employment relationship between the parties terminated, ordering the company to pay an indemnity of 12 months’ salary of the last full salary. This was because the dismissal notice was vitiated by a breach of form and failed to specify points awarded to each worker and the factual data relating to dependent family members, the abstract points provided for each criterion and each worker’s seniority data.
Six of the original workers appealed against the decision on four grounds, with the company responding with a counter-appeal. The public prosecutor concluded that the first grounds of appeal should be upheld and absorbs the others.
According to the Court of Cassation, the failure to specify in the notice, under art. 4, paragraph 9, Law no. 223/91, the criteria for choosing the workers to be dismissed did not allow the worker to understand why they were dismissed and not other colleagues. It stated that this hindered any challenge to the employer’s termination. That would entail a case of procedural unlawfulness since that failure would not constitute a mere formal non-compliance but would entail a breach of the selection criteria.
In the Court’s opinion, the unlawfulness could only lead to the dismissal annulment and the consequent ordering the employer to reinstate the employees and pay an indemnity not exceeding 12 months’ salary of the last full salary, under art.18, paragraph 4, of the Workers’ Statute.
Other related insights:
The Court’s ruling 1 on 2 January 2020, stated that the requirements of art. 19 of the Workers’ Statute to establish union representatives, with the rights referred to in section 3, should not be confused with the principles stated in art. 28 of the Statute (unfair labour practice repression). Art. 19 requires signing of national collective agreements (or provincial or company collective agreements, but applied in the company) or union participation in negotiation of these agreements, as workers’ representatives. Art. 28 only requires the association to be national. The procedure is for cases where protection of the union’s collective interest to freely exercise its prerogatives is challenged. This interest is distinct and autonomous from individual workers’. The Court of Cassation declared the employer’s transfer of 80% of workers registered or affiliated to a trade union from one plant to another to be an unfair labour practice, even if the company’s underlying needs were legitimate. The employer’s conduct was considered to be harmful to the collective interests of the union. In the Court’s view, the statistical element, which reveals a situation of disadvantage for the union, gives rise to a presumption of discrimination. The employer must provide proof to the contrary.
The Court of Cassation, with judgement No. 7642/2019, has once again deliberated on the issue of selection criteria in collective redundancy procedures, as set out in Law 233/1991.
The facts
The Court of first instance rejected a statement of opposition filed by a company pursuant to art. 1, paragraph 51, of Law 92/2012 against the decisions issued at the end of the summary case hearing to overturn the dismissal of two workers in the context of a redundancy process pursuant to Law 223/1991.
The company had challenged the first instance judgement before the Court of Appeal, which, in granting the appeal, dismissed all claims of the workers.
The Court of Appeal held that the company, contrary to what the applicants had claimed, had not assigned a different weighting to the three selection criteria set out in art. 5 of Law 223/1991, observing that “their concurrent existence does not indicate parity but merely their simultaneous presence in the assessment process”.
In detail, in the context of the technical, production and organisational needs criteria, the company had identified four sub-criterions, specifically: (i) attendance; (ii) positions established to be redundant; (iii) versatility; (iv) employed in discontinued operations. This was because the need to reduce staff numbers was linked to industrial restructuring programmes that involved discontinuing a number of operations in the production area.
On this point, the Court of Appeal:
Furthermore, the Court of Appeal held that two factors could not be underestimated, that the trade unions involved throughout the entire procedure had not raised any objection to the selection criteria used and that the applicants had not “provided a simulation of a ‘prova di resistenza’” (comparing the scores of all employees made redundant against those of all employees not made redundant).
Two employees challenged the decision of the Court of Appeal before the Court of Cassation. The two petitions were rejected by the Court of Cassation.
Court of Cassation ruling
In rejecting the two petitions, the Court of Cassation first highlighted that an application to overturn a collective redundancy for violation of the selection criteria set out in art. 5 of Law 223/1991 could not be brought randomly by each of the workers made redundant. In fact, the violation could only be challenged by those employees made redundant who had effectively suffered a detriment as a result of the violation, insofar as the violation was decisive in the redundancy decision (see Court of Cassation ruling No. 24558/2016).
That said, the Court of Cassation observed that an employer could not restrict the selection of the workers to be made redundant “solely to workers of the departments or sectors that were being discontinued or downscaled if such workers met the requirements – having performed their duties in other departments in the past – to replace co-workers in other departments”. In other words, it would be unlawful to select employees based purely on the fact that they work in a certain department without considering that they have equivalent professional skills to those of co-workers employed in other departments.
In the specific case, the Court of Cassation deemed that the trial court had dismissed the argument that a different weighting had been given to the three selection criteria set out in art. 5 of Law 223 because all three had been assigned a score.
In detail, the Court of Cassation took the view that the process of breaking down the criterion of technical, production and organisational needs into four sub-criterions, and assigning a “different score” to each, reflected the need to compare all employees who performed equivalent tasks in different production areas.
With judgment no. 4670 of 18 February 2019, the Court of Cassation maintained that the controls requested by the employers of an investigation agency are legitimate if the investigation concerns the control of behaviour that could be criminally relevant or fraudulent actions capable of damaging the employer.
The facts
A company active in the food industry had found out through a private investigation agency that on 22, 23 and 24 December 2014 and on 22 and 23 January 2015 and 5 February 2015, one of its own employees, instead of assisting a family member in relation to whom the worker had requested use of the leave allowed under Article 33 of Law no. 104/1992, had instead been busy with other personal activities (in places of business and other places, in any case not the one in which the assistance activities should have taken place).
The company had therefore started a disciplinary procedure against the employee, at the end of which it had served a notice of termination from employment for cause.
The worker had applied to the labour court for a declaration of unlawfulness of the dismissal in question and application of all the legal consequences resulting therefrom.
Even though the Court had excluded from the disciplinary measure the days of 22, 23 and 24 December given that the company had decided to suspend all work activities during the Christmas Holidays, it rejected the claim of the worker, declaring the dismissal legitimate.
The worker then filed a complaint before the Court of Appeal having jurisdiction pursuant to Law no. 92 of 2012, claiming also that the investigation agency was not licensed to carry out the investigations.
The Court of Appeal had upheld the judgment of the court of first instance and, in particular, had declared the dismissal legitimate, on the basis that the investigations aimed at the ascertainment of an improper use of the leaves pursuant to Law no. 104/1992 did not concern the performance of work activities. This is so because the investigations had been carried out during non-working hours and during suspension of the primary obligation to perform.
The court therefore ruled that the findings of the investigations and the first-hand testimony of the investigators were admissible, and that the argument of the agency not holding a license issued by the Prefecture had come too late.
In conclusion, the Court found that the worker had misused the right under Article 33 of Law no. 104/1992, betraying the confidence placed in the employee and constituting such a reproachable behaviour that the measure adopted was justified, even in the absence of other previous disciplinary measures.
The worker therefore filed an appeal before the Court of Cassation against the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
The ruling of the Court
The Court of Cassation upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal having jurisdiction and:
According to the Court of Cassation, the activities of the investigation agencies – in order to be lawful – should not extend to the work activities in the strictest sense. Indeed, under Article 3 of the Workers’ Statute, this is the direct responsibility of the employer and its collaborators. Therefore, the actions in question are justified not only because of the occurred wrongdoing and of the need to assess its nature, but also in the event of a mere suspicion or hypothesis that wrongdoings are being committed (see Court of Cassation no. 3590 of 14 February 2011; Court of Cassation no. 848 of 20 January 2015).
According to the Court, neither the principle of good faith nor the prohibition of remote controls referred to in Article 4 of the Workers’ Statute prevent the above, given that the employer can autonomously decide how and when to carry out the controls, including secretive controls, and given that the worker is obliged to act diligently while the employment contract is in force (see Court of Cassation no. 16196, 10 July 2009). This is so because the conduct of the worker:
Conclusions
In brief, it follows from the judgment at hand that the employer can legitimately hire an investigation agency to verify if during the periods of leave from work, on grounds of assistance to a family member, the worker performs other activities and, in the event of evidence in this sense, it can legitimately proceed to the dismissal of the worker.
Other News:
https://www.delucapartners.it/en/news/2017/employers-can-hire-a-private-investigator-to-make-sure-that-the-leaves-envisaged-in-law-no-10492-are-not-improperly-used/
Ascertainment of breaches of discipline by private detectives
