Source: Digitalic

The Tribunal of Rome, IV Labour Section, in judgment no. 9135 filed on 19 November 2025, rejected the appeal of a junior graphic designer and held that her dismissal for justified objective reason was legitimate. The designer had been employed by a cybersecurity company from 14 March 2022 until the position’s suppression on 2 May 2023 after the company documented an economic crisis, reorganized its activities, abandoned design as a line of business and adopted generative AI tools that absorbed remaining graphic tasks. The court found the company’s evidence of economic-organizational needs and the causal link between the reorganization and the job suppression persuasive.

The judge, Paola Lucarelli, applied the three traditional criteria of giustificato motivo oggettivo under article 3 of law 604/1966: documented economic-organizational needs, direct causal nexus between reorganization and suppression of the post, and impossibility of relocating the worker (repêchage). The ruling states that AI appeared in the motivations as one efficiency tool among others, not as an autonomous ground for dismissal, and notes that the claimant had secured a new permanent designer role from 14 February 2024 and withdrew her request for reinstatement; her remaining economic claims were also dismissed and litigation costs were balanced. The decision highlights that repêchage will remain the practical battleground for future AI-related employment disputes and that courts evaluate the solidity of the reorganization rather than the mere presence of technology.