A company identified an employee on its payroll as “buzzed.” Justice has added some zeros to the joke

A payroll can be much more than a payment document: in this case, it became judicial evidence and object of compensation for damage to honor. A company in the Basque Country included the word “Zumbada” to identify the employee as a beneficiary on two successive payrolls. It so happened that the employee’s ex-husband was also the co-owner of the company.

A ruling from the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country has condemned the company to pay 10,000 euros in damages to the employee’s honor.

A list for “Zumbada”. According to is detailed in the sentence issued by the Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country, the worker carried out administrative tasks in the company of her ex-husband, of whom he was in the middle of the judicial process of divorce and custody of their common son with a disability. In this context, the employee received two payrolls in which the word “Zumbada” appeared in the section intended to indicate the name of the beneficiary of the payroll.

As it could not be otherwise, the employee filed a lawsuit against the company. As the employee herself stated in an intervention in the program “And now Sonsoles” hosted by Sonsoles Ónega on July 27, “There was a first trial for the crime of minor insults in which it was the other partner, Iñaki, who took responsibility for having made that transfer.” However, the employee resorted to court again when she understood that it was the company that had to respond for her work mistreatment, arguing that she suffered a workplace harassment for the humiliating work shown towards her on her payroll.

It’s not harassment. In July, the Social Court handed down a ruling arguing that, however reprehensible, the company’s conduct did not constitute workplace harassmentconsidering it a sporadic act.

The labor lawyer Juanma Lorente agreed with the court’s ruling and analyzed the case in a published video on his Instagram profile. “We are not talking about workplace harassment, but rather a breach by the company, and you can file a complaint against it. But it is not workplace harassment. They have to be repeated over time for approximately six months,” said the lawyer, indicating that the employee’s legal advice had not been correct.

The TSJPV did not let it pass. Although in the first instance the Social Court dismissed the claim. The ruling was taken to the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country, where on October 25 it revoked the first ruling, recognizing that the company had violated the employee’s right to honor by using the term “Zumbada” on its payroll.

The ruling emphasizes that “the inclusion of derogatory terms in a list generates a detriment to the dignity of the worker and constitutes an act contrary to the fundamental principles of respect and honorability”, indicating that the offense occurred in a public context given that the document had to be processed by the employees of the financial institution, bypassing the area of ​​privacy. For this reason, the Court has sentenced the two partners of the company (one of them her ex-husband) to pay compensation of 10,000 euros for damage to the employee’s honor.

History repeats itself. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that payroll processing has been used as a channel to inflict humiliating treatment on employees. In 2024, a baker included the concept “Nómina Abril Maricón” on the payroll of one of its employees, which led to a conviction and the seizure of his assets to face a compensatory compensation.

In Xataka | An employee put the handbrake on the company van when he was the passenger. He was fired, but from his company

Image | Wikimedia Commons (Zarateman), Unsplash (Resume Genius)