Court of Cassation: information due to the employer during an employee’s absence for sickness

With sentence no. 15226 dated 22 July 2016, the Court of Cassation rejected the petition of a female employee seeking to overturn the sentence of the court of Appeals which upheld her dismissal for disciplinary reasons i.e. absenteeism because of her failure to submit a medical certificate. In the account of the employee, she went to her GP to obtain an extension to the medical certificate, which had expired, but the GP was absent. His replacement sent the certificate to the INPS website. However, the judges of the lower courts ruled that (i) the employee had not promptly notified the employer of her absence, as specified in the national employment agreement for the sector, and (ii) the relevant certificate never reached the Institute [INPS] nor was any evidence provided that the replacement GP had attempted to send it. According to the Court, the concept of unjustified absence, cited in the letter of dismissal, does not refer only to «the lack of justification in an absolute sense» but also to «failure to notify the employer of the existence of the illness or its extension». Asking the GP for a certificate does not meet the requirement for diligence, since the employee is obliged to promptly to notify his/her absence to the employer and to verify the proper outcome of the online procedure and transmission of the sickness certificate. The employee, in fact, may only not send the hard copy form of the certificate, this obligation having been replaced by e-mail transmission by the GP to the Institute.