Courier Worked 11 Years Without a Single Complaint — Fired Over 15 Minutes With a Friend in the Van, Court Orders Reinstatement

A court in Italy has ordered a courier company to reinstate a delivery driver who was fired for letting a female acquaintance ride in his company van for just 15 minutes. According to the newspaper Il Giorno, the incident took place back in June last year on the outskirts of Milan, and the labour dispute has only now been resolved — not in the employer's favour.

What actually happened

One of the company's managers grew suspicious after noticing an unfamiliar woman sitting in the passenger seat next to the courier. The employee was asked to explain himself. He said that by that point he had already delivered all of his parcels for the day and was simply giving his acquaintance a lift back to the depot in Segrate, without deviating from his route.

Despite this explanation, the courier was dismissed on the spot — even though he had worked at the company for 11 years without a single disciplinary mark against his name.

The parties' arguments in court

The employee refused to accept the decision and filed a lawsuit. The courier company's lawyer argued that the worker had breached internal rules, shown disloyalty, undermined the trust between employer and employee, and could have damaged the company's reputation while setting a bad example for colleagues.

The court did acknowledge that company rules had been broken, but ruled the breach to be minor. In the judges' view, immediate dismissal was a disproportionate punishment — a temporary suspension pending investigation would have sufficed.

The court's ruling

The judges concluded that the courier had endangered neither people nor the company's reputation. As a result, the court ordered the company to reinstate his employment contract and pay him full wages for the entire period he had been suspended. The employer appealed, but the higher court fully upheld the lower court's ruling.

Source: novinky.cz