Straining (forced stress) attenuated form of bullying: cause of liability compensation against the employer

Italian version  The court of Brescia sentenced the employer to pay 11,329 Euros in compensation for damages suffered by the employee. She had been declared unfit for teaching and had been assigned to be school secretary; after this assignment, tension arose with the school management when she requested additional staff to carry out the administrative services. The head teacher had reacted to these requests by taking away her work instruments, assigning her teaching duties, albeit as a teacher’s assistant, despite the established unsuitability. In the end the head teacher took away every job from the employee leaving her totally inactive. The court qualified the conduct of the employer as a non-bullying employer but characterized by straining or rather deliberately forced stress inflicted on the victim by the hierarchical superior with a discriminatory objective. The court at the time presented a medical report that ended the investigation by recognizing that the worker had suffered physical and psychological damage. In the case the causal link between the employer's conduct and the biological damage suffered by the worker was proved. The Brescia Court of Appeals upheld the sentence. The employer appealed in the Court of Cassation. The Court of Cassation, however, reconfirmed the sentence stating that "the medical-legal notion of straining rather than that of bullying" corresponds to the canons of law because straining "is nothing but an attenuated form of bullying in which the character of the continuity of vexatious actions is not found". If these actions produce damage to the psycho-physical integrity of the worker, the claim for compensation based on Article 2087 of the Civil Code is justified. The Court of Cassation affirms that it has always and constantly upheld the principle according to which Article 2087 of the Civil Code must be interpreted extensively, "constitutionally oriented towards the respect of essential and primary rights such as the right to health, human dignity and inviolable rights of the person, protected by articles 32, 41 and by article 2 of the constitution ". The hostile actions of the employer, duly attached and proven in the case before the court, consisting in the unjustified deprivation of work instruments and in the assignment of tasks not compatible with the state of health of the employee and finally in their reduction into a humiliating condition of total inactivity, fully justify the sentence for compensation of damages. Cassation sect. Work ordinance n. 3977, 2018 filed on February 19th.