Italy's highest court has ruled it is okay to hurl abuse at someone provided the other side gives as good as it gets.
The Court of Cassation said a woman was entitled to call an acquaintance a "bastard, fool, a cretin and a drug addict" because the insults had been "mutual".
"There was justification for the crime," said the judges.
Confirming a lower court's acquittal of the woman, they ordered the insulted man who brought the appeal to pay 500 euros in costs.
This was the second case on "mutual insults" to make its way to Italy's supreme court this year.
In March, judges acquitted a woman who called an immigrant co-worker a 'bloody n**ger'.
Upholding an earlier ruling, they said the woman's reaction was justified because the man had "cursed" her family and her insult was n "equivalent" response. Rulings by Italy's supreme court are a source of endless delight for the national media. While a number of controversial cases have sparked outcry, others are just downright bizarre.
The court's most notorious decision came in a highly publicized 'jeans rape' case of 1999, in which it decided that a woman who removes tight jeans, even under threat, is complicit in rape.
In another divisive ruling, the court said that bottom-patting was okay provided it was a "sudden and isolated act", while just last week it overturned a rape conviction of a youth who continued having sex with his partner, even though she changed her mind halfway through.
Other baffling sentences have included: punishing a Naples city council whistle-blower who revealed his colleagues were using taxpayers' cellphones to call sex lines; giving the thumbs up for paedophiles to take porn photos of minors so long as they didn't sell them; and upholding an adultery rap against a woman who kissed a bus driver because "the time and emotion invested in the relationship betrayed marital trust".
