The Supreme Court confirms the suicide of a supermarket worker in Cantabria as a work accident

The Supreme Court has confirmed that the suicide of a supermarket chain worker in April 2021 in Cantabria was a work accident. This is clear from an order from the Social Chamber, which has refused to admit the appeal filed by the company against a previous ruling by the Superior Court of Justice of this autonomous community, which considered suicide a work accident and imposed on the mutual the payment of compensation and widow’s and orphan’s pensions to the wife and 16-year-old daughter of the deceased.

In that resolution, issued a little over a year ago and which is now becoming final, the widow’s appeal was upheld against the ruling of Court number 3 of Santander, which in the summer of 2022 concluded that the suicide was not linked to the problems that The man suffered at work but rather from marital problems and his father’s illness. The Labor Inspection had found a causal link between work and suicide, and pointed out the lack of evaluation of psychosocial risks and adoption of preventive measures to eliminate or reduce them by the company.

That was one of the reasons why the Cantabrian superior court revoked the conclusion of the court of first instance, understanding that the “work-related” problems had a “clear temporal connection” with the suicide. These, according to the ruling, had begun “just three months before the fatal outcome” and were “very present in the days prior to the decision to take his own life,” which took place “three days before” rejoining the supposed.

The account of the events indicates that the employee had been sanctioned by the company for which he had worked since 2011 – first as a manager in a center in Vitoria (Álava), and since 2020 as manager of one of the chain’s stores in Santander. , after receiving an anonymous complaint about workplace harassment against a colleague, which led to her transfer to another supermarket in the Cantabrian town of Laredo.

”The concern about the possible consequences derived from the exercise of criminal action against him accompanied him until the day of his death and this concern has no other cause than the purely work-related one,” ruled the TSJ judges, who alluded to several searches that he carried out. on the internet about harassment convictions. Thus, in his opinion, it was “evident that there was a clear connection or relevant causal relationship between the suicidal action and the work.” That is, the work or the circumstances in which the provision of labor services was carried out was “at the basis of the decision to take one’s own life.”

The magistrates emphasized in this sense that the labor problems that began in January 2021, as a consequence of the harassment complaint, “persisted almost until the date of death.” And they understood that the illness suffered by the worker’s father or the problems with his wife were not relevant in this case, which “lacked the necessary entity to put an end to the relationship between the spouses.” But “what is really relevant” for the Cantabrian Supreme Court that heard the appeal is that there was no previous psychiatric history or psychological pathologies that could separate the man’s death from the work problems he suffered. For all these reasons, the ruling concluded that “the decision to take his own life was closely and more than directly linked to his work and, specifically, to the situation derived from the lawsuit for workplace harassment and the consequences thereof. ”.

Work and non-family reasons

Now the Supreme Court, which imposes the payment of 300 euros in costs to the appellant, highlights that the previous instance considered that these are “conclusive facts in favor of the work accident” and declares the inadmissibility of the supermarket chain’s appeal against that failure. In it, the company raised whether the death and survival benefits caused by the worker who committed suicide derive from a work accident or a common illness.

To argue her claims, the appellant presented a ruling from the Superior Court of Justice of Santa Cruz de Tenerife on the suicide of a bank director who was transferred from his office, which caused him an anxiety crisis. Another of hers was added to this one when her wife gave birth, which led to her hospitalization. After her discharge, she enjoyed paternity leave but did not return to her position because she took her own life.

In this case, the death was motivated by family and work-related stressors, such as a judicial process against his brother, the birth of his first child and the effort associated with changing offices, but the ruling did not prove that the “ exclusive cause” of death was work. Thus, for the Supreme Court there is a lack of contradiction between the compared sentences, since they are different cases “with relevant differences regarding the authentic cause of death.”