In March 2022, a carpentry worker in Girona suffered a heart attack, and was admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Despite his serious medical situation, the company decided to fire him just two days later, while he was still in the ICU.
The dismissal had been carried out alleging disciplinary reasons. The most curious thing about the story is that, being the same case, it went through three legal classifications until it was resolved: disciplinary dismissalinadmissible and, finally, void. A complete circle.
A fatal heart attack and an admission to the ICU. As detailed in the sentence From the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, which has ultimately decided the case, the employee had started working as a laborer in a carpentry shop full-time in August 2021 and his gross monthly salary was 1,730.53 euros.
After suffering the heart attack on March 23, 2022, the company notified him of the disciplinary dismissal on March 25, 2022, without assessing his medical condition or hospitalization in the ICU. The company claimed disciplinary dismissal arguing that the employee had not gone to work in the last two days. Obviously, the reason was more than justified given that the employee was still admitted to intensive care when he received the dismissal letter.
Can you be fired during a hospital stay? Not currently, but before the 2022 labor reform that materialized with Law 15/2022, a disciplinary dismissal could be argued if it was not directly linked to the fact of hospitalization. In this case, the company did not fire him for being sickbut for not showing up at work.
That nuance left the loophole that the company took advantage of to fire him when he had not yet recovered from his pathology or know if it would affect his work performance.
The initial judicial process: unfair dismissal. The worker took the case to the Social Court number 1 of Girona. In the first instance, the judge analyzed the situation and decided that the dismissal was not disciplinary, but rather unfair. This means that the dismissal did not meet the legal requirements to be considered justified, and implied compensation.
However, the court did not declare it void because, according to the previous legislation, the worker was not permanently disabled and had already been discharged when the sentence was issued, so the link with the heart attack could not be proven. Therefore, at that time, the court did not consider that there was discrimination on the basis of illness.
It should be noted that, in July 2022, the latest labor reform came into force, which just changes this assessment regarding dismissals of people with illnesses or health conditions that can be considered disabilities, opening the door to new legal interpretations.
A new twist: null dismissal. The worker appealed the first sentence and the case was raised to the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC). In October 2023, with the new labor law already fully established, the TSJC ruled that the dismissal should be considered void. The court indicated that the speed with which the company decided to fire the worker, even while he was in the ICU, showed that the company was aware of his irregular action in dismissal.
This means that the dismissal was illegal and should be reversed in its entirety. The court insisted that the true cause of the dismissal was not absence from work (clearly justified), but rather the worker’s serious illness, which is why it was interpreted that direct discrimination on the grounds of health had been committed.
The TSJC ordered the reinstatement of the worker in his position and that he be paid all back wages since the first lawsuit was filed. In addition, he ordered the company to pay compensation of 15,000 euros for moral damages to the worker.
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Image | Unsplash, Wikimedia Commons
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