Whilst many European jurisdictions have enacted specific anti-bullying legislation, Italy has developed its approach to workplace psychological harassment primarily through case law. Italian courts recognise two distinct categories of harmful conduct — mobbing and straining — each carrying different evidentiary requirements and legal consequences. Understanding the distinction is essential for anyone working within or advising on Italian employment relations.

What Italian Law Means by Mobbing

Italian jurisprudence defines mobbing as a systematic pattern of hostile behaviour directed at an employee with the purpose of marginalising or expelling them from the workplace. The conduct must be repeated over time, form part of a coherent persecutory design, and cause measurable harm to the worker’s health, dignity, or professional standing.

Courts have recognised several variants. Vertical mobbing (or bossing) involves harassment flowing downward from a superior. Horizontal mobbing occurs between colleagues of equal rank. In rarer cases, ascending mobbing targets a manager through coordinated action by subordinates. Regardless of direction, the claimant must demonstrate a unitary persecutory intent — isolated episodes of workplace unpleasantness, however distressing, do not meet the threshold.

Straining: The Lesser-Known but Equally Damaging Conduct

The Italian Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) has carved out a separate category for situations where the harmful conduct is not repeated but consists of a single action — or a small number of actions — with lasting effects. This is known as straining. A typical example is an unjustified demotion: the decision occurs once, but its consequences persist indefinitely, eroding the worker’s professional identity and psychological wellbeing.

The legal significance of straining lies in its lower evidentiary burden. The worker need not prove a pattern of persecution — only that the employer’s action was objectively harmful and lacked legitimate justification. This distinction has opened the door for claims that would previously have failed the stricter mobbing test, giving courts a more flexible tool to address workplace harassment falling between mobbing and ordinary managerial decisions.

The Employer’s Duty of Care Under Article 2087

Both mobbing and straining claims in Italy are typically grounded in Article 2087 of the Civil Code, which imposes on every employer a general duty to protect employees’ physical integrity and moral personality. This provision operates as a catch-all safety net: even where no specific anti-harassment statute applies, the employer can be held liable for failing to prevent conditions that damage a worker’s health.

Article 2103 adds a further layer of protection by regulating job assignments. An employer may not unilaterally reassign a worker to duties corresponding to a lower classification level, except in the narrowly defined circumstances permitted by collective bargaining agreements. Where demotion occurs outside these boundaries, it constitutes an independent breach — and frequently overlaps with straining claims.

Remedies and Compensation

Successful claimants may recover compensation for both economic loss (reduced earning capacity, medical expenses) and non-economic harm (biological damage, existential damage, moral suffering). Italian courts assess biological damage through medical-legal reports that quantify the permanent impairment as a percentage of total capacity. Existential damage captures the broader impact on the worker’s daily life, relationships, and personal fulfilment.

In practice, many of these disputes are resolved through negotiated settlements rather than full trials. Legal professionals focused on employee-side labour disputes typically pursue a strategic combination: documenting the harassment through medical evidence and workplace records, then leveraging the strength of the claim to achieve a favourable out-of-court resolution.

Lessons for Other Jurisdictions

Italy’s dual-track approach — recognising both systematic persecution and isolated-but-lasting harm — offers a nuanced model that avoids the all-or-nothing outcomes seen in jurisdictions with rigid definitions of workplace bullying. The European Foundation’s research on harassment across EU member states highlights significant variation in how different countries define and address psychological violence at work. Italy’s contribution — particularly the straining doctrine — demonstrates that effective worker protection need not wait for comprehensive legislation; it can emerge through careful judicial reasoning, grounded in longstanding principles of employer responsibility.