By Order No. 15987 of 2025, the Italian Supreme Court – Labour Section – reaffirmed the strict application of Article 1335 of the Civil Code, establishing that the presumption of knowledge of “legal notices” (i.e. “atti recettizi”) cannot be rebutted by subjective obstacles, even when the recipient is in a vulnerable physical or mental condition and the notification is intentionally concealed by a cohabiting family member.
The case concerned the dismissal of an employee due to permanent and absolute unsuitability, communicated via letter sent to the employee’s registered residential address. Specifically, the dismissal letter was duly delivered but collected by the employee’s mother, who deliberately withheld the information with the stated intention of protecting her son from potential psychological harm. As a result, the employee contested the dismissal after the statutory deadline had expired.
Both the Court of first instance and the Bologna Court of Appeal declared the employee’s appeal inadmissible due to the expiration of the challenge period, holding that the presumption of knowledge was perfected by the proper delivery of the notice to the recipient’s address.
The Supreme Court subsequently upheld the ruling of the Court of Appeal of Bologna. The core of the decision lies in the strict interpretation of Article 1335 of the Italian Civil Code, according to which a legal notice is presumed known from the moment it is received at the recipient’s address, unless the recipient proves that they were in an objective and blameless condition preventing them from becoming aware of it. Subjective impediments or acts of third-party cohabitants do not bear relevance in this context.
In this specific case, the Italian Supreme Court rejected the argument that the employee’s health condition or the mother’s decision to conceal the letter could constitute an objective impediment. These circumstances pertain to the recipient’s personal and family sphere and are insufficient to overcome the legal presumption of knowledge. Only external factors, beyond the recipient’s control – such as natural disasters, postal errors, or prolonged absence due to force majeure – may constitute valid grounds to rebut the presumption.
In conclusion, this ruling highlights the peremptory nature of the deadlines for contesting dismissals, even in situations where subjective elements prevent the employee from being made aware of the disciplinary measure imposed against them.
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In its judgment No. 19985 of 7 May 2025, the Italian Supreme Court (i.e. “Corte di Cassazione”) upheld the legitimacy of a dismissal for just cause issued to an employee who, in performing his duties as a cashier, had committed repeated accounting irregularities. These mainly involved the failure to register sales transactions and the omission of issuing fiscal receipts.
According to the Court, such conduct – although involving relatively small amounts and in the absence of clear evidence of misappropriation – was nonetheless sufficient to irreparably undermine the relationship of trust between the employer and the employee.
The case originated from an internal investigation initiated by the company through a private investigation firm, which uncovered repeated anomalies in the employee’s handling of cash transactions. These findings led to the initiation of disciplinary proceedings and the subsequent dismissal for just cause.
The dismissal was challenged in court by the employee.
The Court of first istance, by way of an interim order issued at the end of the summary phase under Article 1, paragraphs 51 et seq. of Law No. 92/2012, and a subsequent confirmatory judgment issued at the opposition stage, upheld the employee’s claim. It annulled the employer’s dismissal and ordered the payment of compensation.
According to the first-instance judge, the employer had failed to provide sufficient evidence to support the allegations made against the employee. In particular, the accounting records submitted by the company were deemed unreliable; the identified cash discrepancies were considered to be within normal operational margins and not disciplinarily relevant. Furthermore, the absence of a precise correlation between unrecorded transactions and cash surpluses did not, in the court’s view, support an inference of misappropriation. The Court also noted that the shared use of the same cash register by multiple employees, all operating under a single identification code, made it impossible to conclusively attribute the irregularities to the dismissed worker.
The Court of Appeal overturned the lower court’s decision, upheld the employer’s appeal, and fully rejected the employee’s challenge.
In contrast with the first-instance rulings, the Court of Appeal found that the allegations had been sufficiently substantiated through a set of consistent circumstantial elements, including statements from the investigative personnel, evidence of cash shortages, and a thorough evaluation of witness and documentary evidence.
As a result, the appellate judges deemed the dismissal lawful, holding that the employee’s conduct – given the nature of his role and despite the relatively small sums involved – constituted a serious and repeated breach of the duties of honesty and loyalty, thus justifying the immediate termination of the employment relationship.
The employee filed an appeal before the Italian Supreme Court, raising five grounds of challenge, including the alleged failure by the Court of Appeal to examine key facts of the case – specifically, the claim that the employee had appropriated the proceeds from sales.
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in its entirety, fully upholding the lower Court’s decision. According to the Court, dismissal for just cause can be justified without proving misappropriation in the strict legal sense. It is sufficient that the employee’s conduct – by its objective and subjective seriousness – is capable of irreparably damaging the bond of trust with the employer.
In the case at hand, the repeated failure to record sales and to issue receipts, without any plausible justification, amounted to willful misconduct. Even in the absence of a significant financial loss, such behavior undermines the employee’s future reliability in the performance of his duties.
The Court further reiterated that the principle of proportionality must be assessed not only in relation to the actual economic damage, but also with regard to the nature and frequency of the violations, as well as the employee’s role within the company. The modest amount of money involved is therefore irrelevant; what prevails is the need to safeguard the integrity of the fiduciary relationship – particularly where the conduct is repeated over time and clearly attributable to the employee.
In conclusion, the Supreme Court held that the failure to record cash transactions and issue fiscal receipts – even for small amounts – may constitute just cause for dismissal when such conduct reflects a willful, repeated, and disloyal attitude that irreparably undermines the employer’s trust. Specific proof of misappropriation is not required; it is sufficient that the behavior gives rise to serious doubts about the employee’s future trustworthiness.
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Legislative Decree No. 23/2015 survived the recent referendum on June 8 and 9, which, with a turnout of 30.6 percent, did not reach a quorum. The result is not surprising, but the repeal of Legislative Decree No. 23/2015 would, in any case, have been of little consequence from the point of view of the protections offered to workers.
Recall that the system of ‘increasing protections’ was born, as part of the 2014 labor market reform, to create an organic discipline of the sanctioning apparatus of illegitimate dismissals announced, both by employers with more than 15 employees and by those ‘sub-threshold’, to workers hired since March 7, 2015. In the intentions of the legislature, the reform was supposed to come into force gradually being, precisely, intended to apply only to new employment relationships initiated from that date.
Compared to Article 18 of the Workers’ Statute, which had already been deeply amended by the ‘Fornero Reform’ in 2012, Legislative Decree No. 23/2015 aimed to introduce a new system of protections based on two principles. The first, the introduction of a compensation indemnity increasing according to the length of service of the employee concerned and, the second, the limitation of the scope of application of reinstatement protection. In fact, the reform in question had provided, in line with the disciplines adopted in Germany and Spain, a rigid mathematical formula parameterized by seniority, to eliminate the discretion of judges in determining compensatory indemnities.
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In the very recent ruling No. 11344 of April 30, 2025, the Supreme Court clarified that judicial proceedings introduced under the so-called Fornero Rite before February 28, 2023 continue to be governed, even in the appeal stages, by the provisions dictated by the same rite, although the same was repealed by the so-called Cartabia Reform.
The so-called “Fornero rite” had been introduced by Law No. 92/2012 (Art. 1, paragraphs 47 – 69) to address the need to ensure celerity in the resolution of dismissal disputes.
While the legislator’s intentions were shareable, from the first applications the genetic flaws of that normative translation had become apparent.
In fact, the Fornero rite, applicable only to dismissals governed by Article 18 of the Workers’ Statute, implied that the judicial claim could only concern the legitimacy of the dismissal and issues “based on the same constituent facts.” This led, on the one hand, to interpretive doubts about the claims admissible under this rite and, on the other, to a fractioning of judicial claims related to the employment relationship, resulting in an inevitable proliferation of judicial litigation.
Reflection on the evident ineffectiveness of the Fornero rite, as to the possibility of explaining that prefigured deflative effect, had already led the legislature to its “applicative downsizing” by Legislative Decree No. 23/2015, which excluded its application to dismissals subject to the so-called “growing protections” regime, for all employment relationships established since March 7, 2015.
After all, the so-called. Fornero Rite had never been particularly appreciated by insiders and its repeal had also been proposed by the “Commission for the elaboration of proposals for interventions in the field of civil process and alternative instruments” (established at the Ministry of Justice by Ministerial Decree of March 12 March 2021) and this with the twofold aim of “simplifying and clarifying the regulatory framework of the procedural discipline in the matter of dismissals” and “overcoming the interpretative and applicative difficulties that Article 1, paragraphs 48 ff., of Law No. 92 of June 12, 2012, has caused to emerge since its introduction, with inevitable repercussions for the relationship between employer and employee.”
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With the recent ruling no. 11344 dated April 30, 2025, the Italian Supreme Court clarified that judicial proceedings initiated under the so-called “Fornero” procedure prior to February 28, 2023, continue to be governed—even in the appeal stages—by the provisions established by that procedure, notwithstanding its repeal under the so-called “Cartabia” reform.
The dispute originated from the challenge to a dismissal brought by a worker employed before March 2015 and thus covered by the protections of Article 18 of the Workers’ Statute (i.e. “Statuto dei Lavoratori”).
To fully understand the matter and the reasoning set forth by the Supreme Court in the ruling under review, it is necessary to reconstruct the procedural phases, including their chronological sequence.
The dismissal was challenged in October 2021 by filing a claim pursuant to Article 1, paragraphs 47 et seq., of Law no. 92/2012 (the so-called Fornero law). By order dated November 9, 2022, the Court of First Instance dismissed the claim, thus concluding the preliminary phase. The employee then filed an opposition against this order, which the Court of first istance rejected by judgment dated June 6, 2023.
About six months later, on December 1, 2023, the claimant lodged an appeal with the Court of Appeal, submitting an appeal (rather than the prescribed complaint) against the Court of first istance judgment following the opposition phase.
The Court of Appeal declared the appeal late and thus inadmissible, as it was filed within six months instead of within the thirty-day term required for the complaint.
The Court of first istance interpreted Articles 35 and 37 of Legislative Decree no. 149 of 2022—which regulate, respectively, the transitional discipline and the repeal of the Fornero procedure—holding that the repeal applies only to proceedings initiated after February 28, 2023, and that the case at hand, having been initiated prior to that date, remained governed by the previous procedural provisions, namely Article 1, paragraphs 47 et seq., of Law no. 92/2012.
Against this ruling, the employee appealed to the Supreme Court, advancing a single ground of appeal.
The claimant argued that, once the repeal of the Fornero procedure was enacted by the Cartabia reform, the complaint procedure could no longer survive.
This argument was based on the combined reading of the first and fourth paragraphs of Article 35, paragraph 1, of the Cartabia reform, which—as noted—govern the transitional phase between the old and the new procedural rules.
Specifically, the first paragraph provides that, “unless otherwise provided,” the new provisions apply to proceedings initiated after February 28, 2023; the claimant interpreted an exception to this rule in the subsequent fourth paragraph of the same Article 35, which states that the new provisions “apply to appeals filed after February 28, 2023.”
The Italian Supreme Court, rejecting the employee’s appeal, confirmed the correctness of the lower courts’ interpretation.
Starting from a literal analysis of the legislative amendment, the Supreme Court ruled that the application of the new provisions to appeals filed after February 28, 2023, is limited to those governed by the ordinary civil procedure (namely, Chapters I and II of Title III, Book II of the Italian Code of Civil procedure) and to those relating to the generality of labor disputes subject to the ordinary labor procedure (Articles 434, 436-bis, 437, and 438 of the Code of Civil procedure).
Article 35, paragraph 4, does not extend its scope to the complaint, which is a specific form of appeal within the so-called Fornero procedure, a procedure to which Article 35 makes no reference.
The Supreme Court further emphasized that this interpretation is consistent with the general principle of perpetuatio iurisdictionis, according to which civil proceedings are governed in their entirety by the procedure in force at the time the claim is filed. The principle of “tempus regit actum”, which means that supervening laws apply immediately to procedural acts considered individually, does not apply to the entire set of systematically organized procedural rules guiding the judicial decision, as this would violate the principle of non-retroactivity of the law set forth in Article 11 of the preliminary provisions to the Civil Code, of which Article 5 of the Code of Civil Procedure is an expression.
It follows that proceedings pending under the Fornero Procedure as of February 28, 2023, remain governed—even during the appeal phase—by the provisions laid down in Article 1, paragraphs 47 et seq., of Law no. 92 of 2012, whose repeal (Article 37, Legislative Decree no. 149 of 2022) applies only to proceedings initiated after February 28, 2023.
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