“A monetary protection that is incompatible with the necessary personalization of the damage suffered by the worker”: this is how the Constitutional Court, in its ruling no. 118 of 21 July 2025, defined the 6-monthly salaries ceiling provided for by Article 9, paragraph 1, Legislative Decree no. 23/2015 in relation to the compensation indemnity for unlawful dismissals of workers in small companies (i.e., organizational entities that employ fewer than 16 employees and do not meet the employment requirements of Article 18 of the Workers’ Statute).
In the opinion of the Constitutional Court, the upper and insurmountable limit set forth in the aforementioned regulatory provision is to be deemed unconstitutional in that it does not allow the judge to parameterize the amount of compensation for the damage suffered by the dismissed worker based on the criteria of personalization, adequacy and appropriateness.
The reduced compensation limit, in fact, according to the Constitutional Court, would
preclude the trial judge from concretely compensating the damage suffered by the worker in cases of extreme severity of the dismissal, thus not guaranteeing effective protection in all cases of unlawful dismissal.
Moreover, starting from the rationale of the rule (which was to not overburden small
companies’ owners by imposing excessive and unsustainable costs on them in the event
of unlawful dismissals), the Constitutional Court censures its size parameter used by the Italian legislator as the sole criterion for assessing the economic strength of the employer.
In the Constitutional Court’s opinion, in fact, the number of workers employed by a
company cannot be the sole indicator revealing the economic strength of the employer and the relevant sustainability of the costs resulting from an unlawful dismissal, other indicators, such as, for example, the company’s turnover, must also be considered.
Therefore, the 6-monthly salaries ceiling does not appear to be supported by a valid
foundation and, as stated in ruling no. 118/2025, is a harbinger of “compensatory” injustices in the case of unlawful dismissals characterized by particular unfairness and exceptionally serious defects.
Concluding the pronouncement in comment, the Constitutional Court therefore invites the Italian legislator to intervene on the aforementioned issue, proposing the repeal of the 6- monthly salaries cap or, at the very least, the elimination of the impassable nature of this cap.
So, the result not achieved by the referendum of last June 8/9 of 2025, seems to be reached by the Constitutional Court, with a ruling that will certainly open up quite a few interpretative and applicative scenarios in the coming months.