Coffee Break at Bar not a Right, Firms not liable of mishaps: Italian Supreme Court

Italy’s Supreme Court ruled that workers who suffer an accident when they temporarily step out of their office for a “coffee break”, a tradition in Italy, should not receive any compensation.

The judges of the high court have accepted the appeal of the National Institute against Occupational Accidents (INAIL) in the case of a worker who had requested discharge and compensation after suffering an accident during working hours, according to press agency EFE.

The worker, a female employee of the Florence Prosecutor’s Office in northern Italy, had slipped on the pavement and broke her wrist when she left the office to have coffee with the approval of her supervisor.

According to The Telegraph (paywall), During the 40 days in which she had to recuperate at home, her insurance company, Inail, refused to pay her compensation, decreeing that the accident was not related to work. The woman took the company to court and won her case in a tribunal in Florence in 2013, with judges ordering Inail to pay her compensation and a disability allowance.

That ruling was confirmed in 2015 by an appeals court, with judges decreeing that the accident happened in the context of her work. The insurance company then took the case to the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest court. However, the court has handed down a definitive verdict, saying that Inail should not have had to pay compensation.

The Supreme Court judges, after studying the case and the INAIL appeal, have determined that workers should not be compensated for the accidents they suffer when leaving their posts for the “coffee break.”

Going to a bar or café for a break from the office was “a risk that was taken willingly by the employee” and was not a “physiological need connected with her work activities,” judges ruled.

Furthermore, it did not matter that the woman’s supervisor had given her and her colleagues permission to head to the local bar on the basis that there was no canteen or coffee machine in the office.

The ruling establishes that this rest “is not a necessity linked to work, but a free choice.”

The Supreme Court ordered the woman, who is now retired, to pay €5,300 in legal costs.

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