Court of Cassation: the relationship of trust releases the employer from continuous pressing

By way of judgment No. 10069/2016 the Court of Cassation has stated the principle pursuant to which “the employer has the power, but not the obligation, to continuously and regularly control its own employees”. In the case at issue and by reversing the decisions of the judges ruling on the merits, the Court of Cassation has held the dismissal inflicted on a worker who had held himself/herself liable for having requested expense reimbursements for an amount in excess of the amounts actually paid for carrying out certain activities to be lawful. According to the Court, the fact of having made false statements clearly underpins a criminal conduct on the worker’s side, which irremediably jeopardises the relationship of trust underlying the contractual bond between employer and subordinate. The Court adds that the “timeliness of the formal disciplinary notice does not need to be assessed in connection with the moment in which the employer could have become aware of the breach had the employer carried out regular controls on the work of its own employee, but in connection with the moment in which it became fully aware”. The importance of the relationship of trust as a tautological condition of employment is thus ratified.