Italy's Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a Telecom Italia employee who sent over 13,000 private text messages from his work cell phone in ten months should not lose his job.
The Cassation Court refused to uphold a 2002 ruling by a Naples tribunal that the fleet-fingered employee, identified as Carlo T., should be sacked after racking up 1,500 euros in SMS costs between January and October 2000.
Explaining their decision, the judges said Telecom had disciplined other employees guilty of the same habit with less extreme penalties, such as docking three days' salary or subtracting the cost of text messages from wage packets.
''Employees must be treated in the same way,'' the court ruled.
