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Return to work after having suffered a heart attack and being intervened urgently is very hard. But that, when leaving the hospital, you have to drive a 674 km truck And it takes more than ten days to return home because the company has not organized the transfer to Spain is much worse. The cherry cherry is to make all that journey making cast stops and that, when you reach your destination, the company has prepared The dismissal letter.
The story you have collected Genbeta It may seem surreal, but it is what happened in 2021 to a truck driver from Elche who, while he was making a long distance route through Europe, suffered a myocardial infarction and had to be treated in Germany.
Now, the Superior Court of Justice of Valencia He has failed in his favor declaring the nullity of dismissal and setting compensation for the treatment received during his return to Spain.
The truck driver incident
As detailed The sentence From the Superior Court of Justice of Valencia, a truck driver of Elche lived a dramatic experience when on December 12, 2021, while driving on Germany on a long distance route to Norway, suffered a myocardial infarction and had to be hospitalized for three days to practice a catheterization.
This incident occurred only three months after the driver was hired as a temporary worker with the aim of covering a new route. After being discharged in the German hospital, the truck driver found himself in a difficult situation that justice has described as “negligent actions” and “uncontending.”
Despite having a work decline due to the surgical intervention they had undergone, the company demanded that it lead more than 674 kilometers to Strasbourg, where a partner who was on a route back to Spain picked him up and returned together.
However, this return trip, far from being direct, included multiple stops and additional distribution tasks assigned to the partner he had collected. Finally, the return was an odyssey that lasted until eleven days later of the medical incident.
Welcome home: You are fired
The truck driver’s adventure did not end with his return to Spain. Upon arriving at Elche on December 23, He notified him the dismissed Without prior notice. The company did not officially communicate the dismissal until a week later, under the pretext of needing its presence to “sign documentation.”
This dismissal was considered by the truck driver as zero for violation of fundamental rightsspecifically the right to physical and moral integrity. In addition, it was argued that dismissal occurred as a result of the worker’s state of health, which could be considered Disability discrimination.
The company, meanwhile, tried to justify its actions. They argued that dismissal was not such, but a “valid extinction of a temporary employment contract due to the circumstances of production.” According to the company, temporary hiring responded to specific market needs, such as covering a new route to Norway and Sweden during the winter and Christmas campaign, and that service had concluded.
The company insisted that, for the return, the instructions of the mutual for the worker’s medical assistance had been followed and denied any discrimination or violation of fundamental rights. However, these justifications were not enough to convince the court.
The court ruling
The Superior Court of Justice of Valencia issued a Judgment in favor of the truck driver. The High Court supported that the company had acted contrary to the protection of the worker’s physical integrity by forcing him to drive in precarious health conditions after having suffered a heart intervention.
The sentence declared the nullity of dismissal forcing the company to readmit itand ordered compensation of 30,000 euros for the truck driver for moral damage derived from the management of his return home.
The court rejected the company’s allegations on the legality of the TEMPORARY CONTRACT EXTINCTIONconsidering that the cause of temporality had not been properly justified. This judicial decision sends a clear message to companies about the need to prioritize the welfare and safety of their employees collected by article 19 of the Workers Statuteabove the operational demands.
Image | Wikimedia Commons (19Tarrestnom65), Unspash (Gabriel Santos)
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