He says that the severity was such that he was not in a position to inform his superiors that he could not go to work
MADRID, 5 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Supreme Court (TS) has declared the dismissal of a journalist who suffers from agoraphobia –a disorder that causes fear and anxiety towards situations that may make those who suffer from it feel trapped– inadmissible for absenteeism, considering that he suffered the illness with such “intensity” that he was not even in a position to communicate to his superiors that he could not go to work.
In a judgment dated December 22, collected by Europa Press, the Social Chamber of the high court rejects the appeal filed by the newspaper against a ruling by the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid that sided with the worker after his dismissal in February 2020, 20 years after joining the company.
Specifically, the company accused him in the disciplinary dismissal letter of a series of unjustified absences, adding that, despite the warnings, he reiterated his attitude and did not go to his job without giving explanations. His departure from the company occurred after spending three days without answering its calls.
The company urged the Supreme Court to unify doctrine, invoking a ruling from the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia that declared the dismissal of a worker who suffered from agoraphobia and an unspecified personality disorder that only limited his abilities to a certain extent.
However, the Chamber makes it clear that “the contradiction between the compared sentences is non-existent since the factual assumptions are different, even when in both cases disciplinary dismissals are analyzed for unjustified absences from work when the workers suffer from agoraphobia”.
And it is that, the magistrates explain, the brief proven facts of the sentence to which the company alludes “only show that the plaintiff has agoraphobia and a personality disorder for several years, but without further specifications.”
“On the contrary, in the present case, the extensive account and the proceedings include the illnesses suffered by the actor, his involvement in the plaintiff’s life, the medication and treatments,” points out the Supreme Court, which points out that the study of the journalist’s disorder reveals “the existence of a loss of functionality in daily life with inability to maintain normal functioning”.
“All of this has significantly affected the actor to the point of constituting an impediment to leaving his home and going to his job in the last year (prior to the dismissal) and, specifically, during the episode that occurred in February 2020 that motivated his dismissal”, highlights the sentence.
The ruling states that “the actor’s volitional capacity was annulled” when he was absent from work, “given the intensity and severity of his depressive disorder, agoraphobia and the strong medication prescribed, without precisely for this reason being able to even to be able to inform his superiors that he could not attend work”.
In this context, the Chamber highlights that “without the presence of the concause, the episodes of absenteeism during the last year of discharge could not have occurred due to the absence or low intensity of the functional loss.”
For all these reasons, the Supreme Court declares the company’s appeal inadmissible, confirms the ruling that sided with the journalist and condemns the media outlet that fired him to pay the costs.
