Analysis and Implications of Constitutional Court Ruling No. 111/2025, Which Also Introduces a New Factual Variable in Dismissal Litigation: the Employee’s Psycho-Physical Health Status
With ruling No. 111/2025, filed on 18 July 2025, the Constitutional Court delivered a significant decision in labor law, declaring the partial constitutional illegitimacy of Article 6, first paragraph, of Law No. 604 of 15 July 1966. The Court found unconstitutional the provision to the extent that it does not allow a worker who is in a state of incapacity of mind at the time of receiving the dismissal notice—or during the 60-day period for extrajudicial challenge—to be exempted from the obligation of prior extrajudicial contestation and to instead challenge the dismissal directly through judicial proceedings (or by requesting conciliation or arbitration) within 240 days from the communication of the dismissal.
To understand the scope of the Constitutional Court’s ruling, it is necessary to outline the regulatory and jurisprudential context in which it is situated.
The core of the legislation is found in Article 6 of Law No. 604 of 15 July 1966. In its current form—shaped by amendments first introduced by Article 32 of Law No. 183/2010 and later by Article 1, paragraph 38, of Law No. 92/2012—the provision structures dismissal challenges as a progressive process, marked by two temporal thresholds:
First Term (Extrajudicial Challenge): The employee must contest the dismissal “under penalty of forfeiture within sixty days of receiving written notice”. The challenge may be made “through any written act, including extrajudicial, suitable to make the employee’s intention known”.
Second Term (Judicial Action): The extrajudicial challenge is considered “ineffective if not followed, within the subsequent one hundred and eighty days, by filing a claim with the labor court registry or by notifying the other party of a request for conciliation or arbitration”.
Failure to comply with even a single one of these deadlines results in the forfeiture of the right to challenge the dismissal and, consequently, in the stabilization of its effects, preventing the employee from seeking either reinstatement or the merely compensatory remedies provided by the special legislation.
The classification of the term as a “forfeiture period” is of crucial importance. Pursuant to Article 2964 of the Italian Civil Code, forfeiture is neither subject to interruption nor suspension, unless otherwise provided. This general principle renders the dismissal challenge period impervious to personal circumstances that would normally suspend the running of time, such as illness. The rationale behind this rule is to require the exercise of a right within a predetermined and brief timeframe, thereby crystallizing an otherwise uncertain legal situation.
The 60-day period (dies a quo) begins from the “receipt” of the dismissal notice. Since dismissal is a unilateral communicative act, its effectiveness and the commencement of the related deadlines are governed by Article 1335 of the Civil Code, which establishes a presumption of knowledge:
“A proposal, acceptance, revocation, or any other declaration addressed to a specific person is deemed known at the moment it reaches the recipient’s address, unless the recipient proves that, without fault, they were unable to have knowledge of it.”
It is precisely the interpretation of this provision that underpins the established jurisprudential orientation.
Indeed, the Supreme Court’s rulings, dating back to early decisions such as Cass. no. 5563 of 1982, have interpreted these rules in a rigorous and formalistic manner, prioritizing legal certainty.
The dominant approach follows the so-called “theory of receipt” or “theory of knowability”. Under this interpretation, what matters for the effectiveness of the act is not the actual knowledge of the recipient, but its mere knowability, which is presumed at the moment the act reaches the recipient’s address.
As a direct consequence, the rebuttal allowed under Article 1335 c.c. (“impossibility of knowledge without fault”) cannot relate to the recipient’s subjective conditions.
As highlighted by the United Sections in the ordinance referring the matter to the Constitutional Court:
“The evidence suitable to overcome the presumption must therefore concern circumstances not related to the recipient’s subjective conditions but to external and objective factors, concerning the connection between the individual and the place of delivery, sufficient to exclude the knowability of the act” (Cass., United Sections, ordinance of 5 September 2024, registered as no. 202/2024).
Therefore, the employee’s incapacity to understand and act (natural incapacity) – being purely subjective and internal – has consistently been considered irrelevant for the running of the forfeiture period. The period starts inexorably from the moment the dismissal letter is delivered, regardless of whether the employee is able to comprehend its content or respond.
The United Sections further excluded the possibility of protecting the incapacitated employee under Article 428 c.c., which governs the annulment of acts carried out by persons lacking capacity. The rationale is that Article 428 c.c. applies to commissive acts (e.g., signing a contract). The failure to challenge a dismissal, instead, is an omissive conduct, a “failure to act” in defense of one’s rights, to which the rule cannot extend.
Jurisprudence has always justified this strict interpretation by balancing the interests at stake. On one side, there is the employee’s right to job stability; on the other, the employer’s interest in continuity and stability of business management. Imposing a short forfeiture period serves this latter interest, preventing organizational decisions from remaining in uncertainty for an extended period. Forfeiture, in this perspective, is not a sanction for inaction, but the objective consequence of failing to meet a procedural obligation designed to protect economic relationships.
In summary, the legal and jurisprudential framework can be described as “rigid”, built on three pillars:
It is precisely against the rigidity of this consolidated system that the ordinance of the United Sections of the Supreme Court is directed. While acknowledging its internal coherence and purpose of certainty, the referring Court questioned its compatibility with fundamental constitutional principles (reasonableness, equality, right to work, right to defense, and right to health) when applied to extreme situations of absolute and blameless incapacity, where the balance of interests is manifestly disproportionate against the employee.
The constitutional question raised by the United Sections of the Supreme Court
The Constitutional Court’s ruling stems from a question raised by the United Sections of the Supreme Court in a case involving an employee dismissed while suffering from a severe illness, leaving her naturally incapable at the time of receipt of the dismissal and during the 60-day extrajudicial challenge period.
The referring judge highlighted that the rigid application of the forfeiture period, insensitive to the employee’s subjective condition, could violate multiple constitutional provisions, including:
The Supreme Court therefore requested the Constitutional Court to issue an additive ruling, making the forfeiture period run not from the receipt of the dismissal, but from the moment the employee regains capacity to understand and act.
Continue reading the full version published at Il Modulo 24 Contenzioso Lavoro.
With Ordinance No. 15987 of 2025, the Italian Court of Cassation established that a dismissal notice is presumed to be known by the recipient at the moment it is delivered to their residential address, even if the employee is not actually informed.
The case at hand concerns a dismissal imposed due to absolute and permanent unfitness for work, communicated to the employee by registered letter sent to their residential address. Specifically, the dismissal letter, properly delivered, was collected by the employee’s mother, who lived with him, and who decided not to hand it over to her son in order to protect him from potential psychological repercussions that the news of the dismissal might cause. Consequently, the employee challenged the dismissal after the statutory deadline of 60 days from receipt of the communication, invoking as justification for the late challenge the lack of knowledge of the dismissal.
However, both the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal of Bologna (second-instance judgment) declared the appeal inadmissible, due to the expiration of the challenge period, considering the communication received at the employee’s address to be fully valid. They relied on a legal presumption of knowledge, based on the substantial legal equivalence between “knowledge” and “knowability” in relation to the delivery of an act to the recipient’s domicile.
The Court of Cassation subsequently confirmed this interpretation, reaffirming that, under Italian law, there is a legal presumption of knowledge of acts: an act is deemed to be known when it reaches the recipient’s address. This presumption can only be rebutted in the presence of objective obstacles beyond the employee’s control, such as natural disasters, serious postal disruptions, or prolonged absences due to force majeure, but not by subjective factors attributable to the recipient.
In conclusion, the ruling reiterates that, under Italian law, the deadlines to contest a dismissal are strict and start from the moment the communication reaches the employee’s address, even in cases where subjective factors prevent the employee from becoming aware of the disciplinary measure imposed on them.
By Judgment No. 315 of June 5, 2025, the Court of First Instance of Vicenza ruled that, for the purposes of territorial jurisdiction, the residence of a remote worker can only be considered relevant if it is demonstrated that a substantial and organized part of the work is carried out there on a stable basis, thereby anchoring the performance of the work to that location.
The employee, working as an external sales representative, contested his dismissal by bringing the case before the court in the district of his residence – where he also used the company – provided laptop and mobile phone.
The employer responded by raising a preliminary objection, challenging the court’s territorial jurisdiction.
The Court of first instance of Vicenza first referred to Article 413, paragraph 2 of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure, which, as is well-known, links territorial jurisdiction to three alternative criteria: namely, the district where (i) the employment relationship arose, (ii) the company or (iii) one of its branches to which the employee was assigned or where the employee performed work at the end of the employment relationship is located.
Following the Supreme Court’s previous rulings, the Court of first instance of Vicenza emphasized the need to interpret the concept of company branch broadly, in order to “make the proceedings more efficient and swift, anchoring them in locations normally closer to the employee’s residence, where the evidence necessary for the case can be more easily found” (Supreme Court judgments No. 506/2019 and No. 6458/2018).
That said, the Court of First Instance clarified that, in any case, “there must always be an objective or subjective connection between the place where the employee performs their work and the company’s organization.”
It should be considered that when remote work can be performed interchangeably from any location, without “any other element (or objective or subjective connection, as previously highlighted) emerging that would in any way characterize the employee’s residence as a company branch, in the sense described, then this criterion cannot be taken into account for determining territorial jurisdiction, leaving only the criteria of the place where the contract was concluded (…) or the office to which the employee was assigned (…).”
On this basis, the Court of First Instance of Vicenza – finding no evidence that a stable and organized portion of the employee’s fundamental work performance was carried out at his residence, so as to firmly anchor the activity to that place – upheld the employer’s objection of lack of territorial jurisdiction.
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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