Drinking on the job is generally frowned upon and considered grounds for dismissal, but a Spanish court ruled that a former electrical installation company worker was entitled to financial compensation despite being caught consuming alcohol during work hours on several occasions.
According to court documents, the unnamed man began raising suspicions among his superiors with his unusual behavior on the job, and the company eventually hired a private detective to follow him around during work hours. After several days, the private eye submitted a report about the man’s drinking habits, which claimed that he was drinking beer in bars and parking lots. One day, he allegedly consumed three liters of beer during a lunch break.
For the company, drinking on the job was a serious offence, especially since the worker was in charge of driving a company vehicle, and his drinking habit put others’ lives at risk, so they decided to fire him. Only instead of accepting his dismissal in light of the evidence against him, the worker sued his employer for wrongful termination.
Photo: engin akyurt
Surprisingly, the High Court of Justice of Murcia ruled in the worker’s favor and considered that the company’s sanction had been excessive, therefore declaring the dismissal unfair. Although they acknowledged the employee’s misconduct, the judges considered the punishment too severe and gave the company two options: either rehire the man or pay him 47,000 euros ($55,000).
The Spanish court based its decision on several factors. The lunch breaks were not technically considered working hours, so his drinking habits could not be considered work-related misconduct in a formal sense. Furthermore, the company could not provide evidence that the beer drinking had affected the man’s performance or that he had ever endangered other people’s lives.
Another important factor in the court’s decision was that Spanish law prohibits dismissal for occasional drunkenness, only allowing it in the case of habitual drinking. The instances observed by the hired detective were considered isolated episodes in court.
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