Not only the specific risk, but also the so-called “improper“ risk, can be compensated too.
Case ref: Court of Cassation, Ordinance No 8948 of 14 May 2020
The Court of Cassation, with ordinance no. 8948 of 14 May 2020, ruled that within the system of the Consolidated Statute on compulsory insurance against accidents at work and occupational diseases (D.P.R. no. 1124/1965) «all illnesses of a physical or mental nature whose origin can be traced back to the risk of work, whether it concerns the work, the organization of work and the manner in which it is carried out».
For these reasons, the Court of Cassation dismissed the decision of the Court of Appeal, which had considered that the illness resulting not directly from jobs listed in Article 1 of the Consolidated Act, but from situations of «organizational restraint, such as “mobbing”» could not be protected under the compulsory insurance cover provided by INAIL.
The Court of Cassation, with this Ordinance, reaffirms its long-standing and steady orientation according to which «in matters of social insurance within the meaning of Article 1 of Presidential Decree 1124/1965, it observes not only the specific risk inherent in the job itself, but also the so-called specific improper risk» meaning the risk «not strictly inherent in performing the job, but connected to the job itself».
In particular, the Judges cited the precedent set forth in judgment no. 3227/2011, by which the insurance cover was extended to the illness attributable to passive smoking to which the employee was subjected in the workplace, «considered worthy of protection, not because it depends on the dangerous performance of the job itself (as “insured risk”), but because it is connected to the fact of performing a job within a given environment».
In conclusion, the Supreme Court found that «any form of pathology that can be considered a consequence of the job, is insured with INAIL, even if it is not included among the tabulated diseases or among the tabulated risks, in which case the worker must only demonstrate the causal link between the harmful work and the disease».