The Cassation Court overturned a 2002 ruling by a Naples tribunal that permitted the telecommunications company to fire the employee, identified as Carlo T., after he incurred more than $2,000 in text messaging charges on his work phone between January and October of 2000, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Tuesday.

The court said in its decision that Telecom Italia had penalized other employees for similar offenses with less extreme measures, including docking wages for three days and taking the cost of the text messages out of the employees' pay checks.

''Employees must be treated in the same way,'' the court said.