The dismissed worker often invokes late dismissal to be reinstated regardless of the existence or otherwise of the behaviours attributed to him, identifying in the immediacy of the disciplinary dispute a constituent element of employer withdrawal.
Several decisions by the Supreme Court upheld this thesis, while others have instead denied giving weight to the defect of the late contestation, with the consequent application of sole protection indemnity.
Called to settle the jurisprudential conflict, the Joined Chambers, with sentence 30985 of 2017, have ruled out reinstatement, stating that the fact disputed late was nevertheless committed and cannot therefore be considered materially non-existent. The recognised indemnity protection, however, is full (so between 12 and 24 months) and not the attenuated one (from 6 to 12 months), which only is applied in procedural violations.
It should be noted that the specific case before the Supreme Court concerned a complaint made after more than two years from the relevant disciplinary facts , while the defenders of the dismissed person tend to plead the lateness in all cases in which the employer did not immediately proceeded in disciplinary way, without considering the investigative needs (witnesses, research and examination of documents) that, in order to avoid unjust dismissals, based on misunderstandings or untrue factual assumptions, often require more than a few weeks and sometimes - considering the company size - even a few months. (LC)
