Failure to dispose of out-of-date products: manager of a discount chain sacked

The failure to dispose of 340 products that had been out of date for months, and delays in drawing up the stock take, perhaps to help meet budget targets, resulted in the disciplinary dismissal without notice of the manager of a branch of a discount supermarket chain. According to the Venice Court of Appeal, to which she had appealed after the first-instance court had upheld the legitimacy of the termination by the employer for serious breach of the obligations set out in Article 17, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the national collective agreement for the sector.

In upholding the decision of the court of first instance, the appeal court highlighted that it was implausible that the appellant, given her considerable length of service (27 years, 20 of which as a branch manager), was unaware of the basic company procedures regarding the monitoring of product expiry dates and their disposal – the subject of a specific company policy – considering it ‘highly probable that she, as alleged in the disciplinary charge… deliberately failed to dispose of the goods in a timely manner because, by doing so, she would have increased the likelihood of meeting the targets set for the payment of bonuses to branch managers’. This conclusion by the Court was also supported by witness testimony.

This systematic breach of company procedures – the Court of Appeal further held – even if it had been committed through negligence (culpability) rather than to facilitate the achievement of budget targets (intent), taking into account the express company policy on the matter, ‘is in itself of such gravity as to irreparably damage the bond of trust and to justify dismissal for just cause, as it does not fall within the scope of a suspended sanction under the disciplinary system of the National Collective Labour Agreement’, which provides for a fine for mere negligence and not for gross negligence, ‘as in the present case’.

The Court of Cassation reached similar conclusions; in its order No. 25231/2026, filed yesterday, it brought the case to a close by confirming the lawfulness of the company’s termination of employment. It is worth noting that, amongst the grounds of appeal put forward by the employee, the judges of the Court of Cassation also had to analyse one relating to the possible discriminatory nature of the dismissal of the woman (a mother of two disabled children), in respect of which – they observed – ‘the Court of Appeal .… ruled, on the basis of a finding of fact that was not effectively challenged, that no evidence had been adduced or demonstrated to establish a presumption of discrimination linked to the appellant’s family circumstances”.