Bosses must not swear at their staff, Italy's Supreme Court ruled Friday.
The ruling came in a case in which a company director from Catania, identified as Sebastiano C., accused an employee of not understanding ''a f***ing thing''.
The employee sued his boss but a lower court in the Sicilian city said the row was covered by the statute of limitations which throws out cases when too much time has elapsed.
However, the court allowed the manager's statement to stay on the records.
Hoping to get himself off the files, the boss took his case to Italy's highest court of appeal, the Cassation Court.
The court earned headlines last year by saying the F-word was OK to use because it was now ''common usage'' but changed tack a few months later by ruling bosses couldn't say employees were ''doing f***-all''.
A similar case this May saw the court take another view, saying mayors could use the word to swear at contractors.
On Friday the Catania manager attempted to argue that the offending word was now socially acceptable but the Cassation judges deemed bosses should be held to a higher standard.
''The hierarchical relationship linking the manager to the employee ought to have led the former to a more careful expressive control,'' it said.
Other past rulings on relations between bosses and staff include:
- June 11, 2003: Carabinieri officer convicted of insurbordination for telling superior he was fed up of being ''ordered around by a child''.
- January 19, 2007: appeal by employee who called boss a 'criminal' turned down.
- November 14, 2007: manager who said employee had 'broken his balls' convicted.
- December 12, 2007: psychiatrist who said boss was 'completely out of it' convicted.
- February 21, 2008: head of meat department in Milanese supermarket sacked for telling workers: 'bastards, sons of whores, bugger off'.
