His role as an extra in a well-known TV series risked making him lose a year of the pension he had achieved thanks to “Quota 100“. But the Vicenza court, which ruled for the first time in a case of this kind, accepted the pensioner’s appeal and sentenced the INPS to pay the sums withheldwith interest.
The provision
The story began in 2020 when the man, with a group of friends, chose to act for a small part in the streets of Thiene in the television series “The Light of My Eyes”. A few hours of fun, 78 euros gross received and the bitter surprise a few months later. The protagonist of the story (who was 63 years old when he improvised as an actor) was given a “provision for recovery of sums received on pension” for an amount that was close to 24,000 euros, with related monthly deductions. This is because the legislation linked to “Quota 100” provides that, once early retirement is reached, one can no longer undertake a subordinate profession. A way to allow an effective generational change in the world of work.
No prohibitions violated
The pensioner, in order not to lose a year’s pension, therefore turned to lawyers Paola Piccoli and Alberto Righi of the associated law firm Vis. “We have argued that this experience – explained Piccoli – certainly cannot be considered an employed work activity in the strict sense and cannot be considered suitable, cinstead, as INPS claimed, to violate the cumulation ban of pension and income from employment imposed by the legislator for pensioners with Quota 100″. “It is therefore clear that the experience of appearing in a TV series, as a passer-by, in a single scene, a single day – concluded the lawyer – does not, in our opinion, lead to a reintegration of the appellant into the world of work, nor does it create a detriment to the generational turnover system, resulting in illegitimacy of the INPS provision”.
The motivations
The reasons led the labor judge, Paolo Sartorello, to accept the pensioner’s appealarguing that “an interpretation compliant with the ratio of the rule therefore requires considering them compatible with the payment of the pension”Quota 100“incomes of negligible amounts deriving from completely isolated services, having a specialty character such as to substantially differentiate them from the typical employment relationship”. That of Vicenza is a case that has several precedents throughout Italy. In January Robert Stark, resident in Merano in Alto Adige, had received 77 euros gross to appear as a lawyer in the Trento court in the film about the virologist Ilaria Capua entitled “I Virus Trafficker”. The South Tyrolean had stopped working since 2019 thanks to “Quota 100” and, due to that his day in front of the car to be taken in 2021, the INPS received a request for the repayment of the entire pension received over the course of a year: an amount of over 20,000 euros.
