The Superior Court of Justice of Cantabria (TSJC) has declared the suicide of a worker as an accident at work, ruling that there was “causality” between the suicide and the situation he lived in at work, for which his widow and daughter will have to receive Social Security benefits.
In this way, the labor chamber of the Superior Court upholds the appeal filed by the worker’s wife against a judgment of the Labor Court number 3 of Santander, which dismissed the lawsuit filed by the wife on the understanding that there was no such relationship and attribute the suicide to the personal situation of the worker with his sick father.
According to the sentence issued by the TSJC, known to EFE, the man, who was responsible for a store in a supermarket chain in the region, was denounced by a worker for workplace harassment, an accusation that in an internal investigation of the company it was pointed out that she could be induced by another employee.
In addition, it is added that in the store for which he was responsible the atmosphere was “rarefied” by union elections. In this situation, the company proposed to this worker a change of store away from his residence and that he accept the penalty for harassing the worker.
In addition, the social court of the TSJC highlights, in its ruling, that there is no psychiatric history or previous mental illnesses that could unlink his death with the labor problem.
For this reason, it concludes that the suicide he carried out “was closely and more than directly linked to his work and, specifically, to the situation arising from the lawsuit for workplace harassment and its consequences.”
“We understand that the labor conflict, a foreseeable filing of a criminal complaint against him and the upcoming incorporation to a new workplace outside the place of residence, three days before the suicide, affected his state of mind and subsequent decision to end his life”.
In this way, the court considers that “the worker’s death has as its immediate cause his work” and condemns Social Security, the company and its insurer to pay widow’s and orphan’s benefits to the wife and daughter, as well as to both receive compensation.
