A transportation company based in Alicante has been ordered to re-admit a worker and pay 30,000 euros for moral damages after he was dismissed following a heart attack he suffered while in Germany, and after doubts about his health due to the short time elapsed before he was released from medical care. Despite his condition, he had to drive more than 600 kilometers to France, where a colleague picked him up to continue delivering, meaning he did not return to Spain for nine more days.
The High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community confirmed the ruling last November, rejecting the company’s appeal as well as the worker’s, who requested a higher compensation. The company was also ordered to cover the legal costs of the proceedings.
The challenged ruling notes that the worker has proven the necessary indicators of a violation of the fundamental rights he claims, specifically his physical integrity. It also considers that before starting his contract he underwent a medical examination and was deemed fit without restrictions.
Initial findings by the Social Court number 1 of Alicante indicate that the cardiac incident hit the worker on December 12, 2021, during a route in Germany. The driver was admitted to the Marien Hospital in Euskirchen (Germany) and received two days of treatment for a myocardial infarction. After stabilization he was discharged for outpatient follow-up and was told to seek medical care if symptoms worsened.
He was supposed to travel to Sweden and Norway
The transporter contacted his boss via WhatsApp on the same day as the heart attack, informing him that tests were being conducted and that he had chest pain since the night before. The truck driver was scheduled to unload in Sweden the following day.
After being reassured by his supervisor, the driver was told to be at home on December 31 because the medications had run out and he was scared. From that moment the company began to create obstacles to transporting him to Spain. They stated that without a medical leave there would be no coverage for the transfer, and if he chose to go on his own he should say so, which sparked a dispute. The supervisor did not understand that he had been discharged after a heart attack and a catheterization, and ordered him to send the hospital documentation, which the worker did within a few hours.
The next day the wage leave was debated again, emphasizing that both his doctor and the hospital doctor had told him not to work until they saw his own doctors. Facing disagreements, the worker traveled with the company truck from Germany to the Netherlands and then to France, stopping in Strasbourg while awaiting the company’s transport to his home, covering a total of 674 kilometers.
The company arranged for a colleague to pick him up in Strasbourg, which happened, although first seven deliveries in Barcelona had to be completed. Throughout the journey the coworker reportedly ignored that the worker was ill and had not been vaccinated against Covid, the ruling notes. The decision also points to the insurer’s stance that this was not an occupational accident but a common pathology, so it did not cover the driver’s transfer to Spain.
The company did not improve its handling of the worker after his arrival in Spain. On December 23, after the dismissal, it asked via WhatsApp that the worker return the phone and cards urgently, to which he replied that his wife would bring them the next day because he was not well. The company insisted that he had to go himself to sign the documents and, once that paperwork was completed, it left him with the travel expenses still owed.
Yes, there was a dismissal
In its appeal to the High Court, the company tried to change the narrative of events, which the judges rejected. The claims denying that a dismissal occurred were not upheld, as the court described the incident as the valid termination of a fixed-term contract due to operational circumstances. The court noted that none of the company’s workers had a fixed route, so neither the claimed temporary nature nor its specification in the contract could be properly credited.
The tribunal also reproached the company for trying to justify its actions by claiming that the insurer’s instructions for medical assistance were followed, when in fact the company failed to take timely steps to return the worker home and even attempted to keep him working while on medical leave until another coworker transported him to his home.
Moreover, it highlights that the return was carried out after nine days during which the company had the worker perform deliveries, giving rise to reasonable evidence of a violation of the fundamental right from the moment the employer, knowing the worker’s condition, did not act properly and instead subjected him to delays, trips, and work orders that seriously endangered his health.
The ruling concludes that the Alicante-based company did not prove it did everything possible to attend to the worker’s illness while protecting his physical integrity, and that the dismissal stemmed from the worker’s long-term illness rather than being unrelated to it. The decision is subject to possible cassation before the Supreme Court.