The Court of Asti, with the purchase of 5 January 2022, dominated that the quarantine interval (as for each art. 26, paragraph 1, Decree Regulation 18/2020 relevant ratione temporis) or voluntary homestay is not legitimate for calculating the safety period of time, not only vis-a-vis subjects who have had near contact with verified cases, but also with regards to subjects who finish up positive for Covid-19. This is simply because it is unachievable by law to carry out the task no matter of the presence of signs or symptoms or not joined to the pathology.
Info of the situation
In the case in issue, the employee, adhering to speak to with a colleague turned out to be optimistic to Covid-19, she was initial put in quarantine and later on, following a beneficial swab final result, in voluntary homestay. The employer dismissed her for exceeding the shielded period of time according to the sector national collective bargaining agreement.
The worker challenged the dismissal in courtroom, professing that:
- the range of unwell days matured throughout the calendar calendar year minus those people between 25 November 2020 and 4 December 2020, because this kind of period was to be regarded as as an occupational injury, for obtaining caught Covid-19 in the office from a colleague and next
- the same was qualifiable as “quarantine with active monitoring or in voluntary homestay with active monitoring” as for each art. 26, paragraph 1, of Decree Law no. 18/2020 which excludes it from the safeguarded period of time.
In contrast with what the worker sustained, the employer sustained that the defense provided in art. 26, paragraph 1, of Degree Legislation no. 18/2020 only refers to the quarantine periods with energetic monitoring or voluntary homestay with energetic checking ordered by the authority and not also the circumstance in which the worker experienced caught the Covid-19 infection.
The Court docket of Asti’s choice
In accordance to the Decide assigned to the situation, through the shielded interval the days of absence thanks to quarantine or voluntary homestay offered by the legislation to combat the unfold of the virus should have not have been calculated.
The Choose – in citing art. 26, paragraph 1, of Decree Law no. 18/2020 as amended by subsequent legislative interventions that prolonged the timeframe – underlined how such provision was launched with the aim of safeguarding staff compelled to be absent from function due to the fact topic to quarantine or voluntary homestay actions equating these types of absence to ailment and excluding it from the calculation for the safeguarded period of time.
In light of the over, in accordance to the Court, in the circumstance in hand, the times of absence needed for quarantine and people requested for homestay due to tests this kind of worker for the virus should really not have been calculated for the goal of exceeding the guarded time period.
The sentence reads that “the ratio of the regulation is not to have the worker undergo the implications for absences from operate due to avoidance and containment actions presented by law and carried out with evaluate of the authorities to limit the distribute of the Covid-19 virus, in all instances of possible or clear an infection from the virus and irrespective of the issue of the illness that – as presently acknowledged – may exist with or with out the infection (asymptomatic constructive situations)” It later on states “even in the situation of an infection with illness, what actually separates Covid-19 from other sicknesses is the impossibility, authoritatively imposed, for the employee to complete their work and for the employer to obtain it in lawfully and administratively anticipated occasions, moments that – the moment once more – are regardless of the improvement of the ailment but count on the mere positiveness or negativeness of the virus”.
Centered on these issues the Court docket granted the worker’s appeal, cancelling the dismissal and (i) reinstatement in her career as effectively as (ii) payment of damages equal to the previous in general remuneration from the day of dismissal right up until that of powerful reinstatement, and in any situation not higher than 12 months wage of overall remuneration, as very well as fascination and revaluation as for each law as very well as payment of welfare and social stability contributions.