The Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country (TSJPV) has ratified the sentence imposed by the Social Court 2 of Donostia on a company that hired a private detective to follow an employee in a situation of temporary disability. The TSJPV thus rejects the appeal filed by the company against the ruling of the aforementioned court that annulled the sanction it imposed on the worker for “fraud and violation of contractual good faith” and ordered it to compensate him with 15,000 euros for damages and losses. caused.
As explained by the court, the origin of this procedure dates back to September 2023 when the worker, who was in a situation of temporary disability due to “unspecified adaptive disorder”, received a notification from the company informing him of the imposition of a sanction of 60 days of suspension of employment and salary for, among other acts, going to play golf. The sanction was based on a report carried out by a detective company that monitored the worker at a private golf club and during his stay outside the Basque Country in a second residence.
The worker appealed the sanction and the Social Court 2 of Donostia agreed with him, and annulled it, considering that the evidence provided by the private detective had violated article 48 of the Private Security Law, which establishes that in “in In no case can the intimate lives of people that take place in their homes or other reserved places be investigated,” such as the aforementioned golf club. In addition, he ordered the company to compensate the worker with 15,000 euros for the damages caused.
Now, the TSJPV rejects the company’s appeal and confirms in its entirety the ruling of the lower court. In that sense, remember that the place where the photographs were taken while playing golf was a “reserved place”, a private place without public access, which leads to confirming the “illegality of the evidence and discerning that it was used to carried out an act of interference with the plaintiff’s right to privacy in the development of his temporary disability process.”
It also specifies that a pathological process such as the unspecified adaptive disorder that the worker was suffering at that time “is not contraindicated in a sporting activity such as playing golf” and the fact of moving to a second residence does not have any impact either. This ruling is not final and can be appealed to the Social Chamber of the Supreme Court.
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