LABOUR | The Supreme Court upholds dismissal for threatening and intimidating behaviour towards a colleague

On 21 July 2025, the Italian Supreme Court issued judgment No. 20394, confirming the lawfulness of the dismissal for disciplinary grounds of a worker who had repeatedly made seriously threatening and intimidating remarks to a younger colleague on a fixed-term contract. The conduct aimed to discourage the colleague from maintaining high productivity levels and to interfere with the company’s organisational structure. The Court reiterated that the assessment of the seriousness and proportionality of disciplinary sanctions falls within the discretion of the trial courts, provided their reasoning remains reasonable and consistent with the principles of Article 2119 of the Civil Code. However, if a National Collective Bargaining Agreement (NCBA) expressly provides for a lesser sanction, then the employer may not impose dismissal. In this case, the Court of Appeal found that the worker’s behaviour violated fundamental principles of social coexistence and moral freedom, and constituted an unjustified interference with the employer’s organisation. As the NCBA did not provide a specific conservative sanction for such conduct, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision, confirming the legitimacy of the dismissal.

Newsletter n. 112 – November 2025