HOT LABOUR TOPICS – A dismissal can’t be grounded on the “objective reasons” of the previous collective dismissal

With ruling n. 808, 16^th January 2020 (see here the full text in Italian), the Supreme Court has stated that a dismissal for objective reasons can’t be based on the grounds as already indicated by the employer with regard to a previous collective dismissal.

As to the merit, the employee was included among the redundancies in the context of a collective dismissal procedure, but – at the end of such procedure – he was not dismissed, since the only agreed criterion of selection was the “non-opposition to the dismissal” and the employee decided not to offer. The following decision of the employer to individually dismiss the employee for the same objective reasons is, therefore, based on grounds having “substantial identity” with collective procedure, thus being, as a consequence, unlawful.

[For request and insight, please contact giuseppe.matarazzo@galaw.it]