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Ainhoa Muñoz
San Sebastián
Friday, 15 November 2024, 18:56
At a sports centre in Donostia (San Sebastián) in the north of Spain, an employee used to drink water from a bottle labelled with her name that she kept in a common fridge. And, fed up with her colleagues drinking from it - she even saw it thrown in a waste bin - she decided to take matters into her own hands. She poured bleach into the bottle to "teach a lesson" to anyone who tried to use it. However, the lesson backfired when the woman was sacked from her job after a colleague drank the bleach.
The Basque Country High Court of Justice of the (TSJPV) ruled the dismissal of the employee who put bleach in a bottle of water with her name on it to "teach a lesson" to the colleague who drank from it because on several occasions other workers had drunk from it and "her patience had run out", as the judge stated.
The TSJPV considered that the decision "is proportional to the conduct committed by the worker".
The court said that the woman had been working as a cleaner at the sports centre since 2014 and that in that centre the workers have a fridge where they can leave their bottles of water or food and that there are also other bottles of water that can be used by staff or offered to customers.
The employee used to leave her bottle of water in that fridge, but on several occasions other workers had drunk from it and she once found her bottle in the waste bin. On 3 November 2023 the worker left a half-litre bottle with her name on it in the fridge and poured some bleach into it. Two days later, another worker drank from the bottle and, realising that it contained more than just water, spat out what he had drunk. When questioned about this, the woman admitted that she had put bleach in the bottle and insinuated with expletives that she didn't care that he'd drunk it. The colleague was treated at a local health centre but did not suffer any injuries to his stomach.
The woman was dismissed by the company on 10 November 2023 on the grounds that her actions amounted to fraud and disloyalty in the tasks entrusted to her, as well as in her dealings with co-workers, and a breach of contractual good faith.
The woman appealed to the TSJPV claiming that the dismissal violated the principle of proportionality and the gradualist theory. She argued that there was not "sufficient gravity and culpability" in her conduct because her intention was not to intoxicate her colleagues, because otherwise "she would not have identified the bottle with her name". In addition, she stressed that her colleague had not suffered any injury and that she had not been previously disciplined.
The TSJPV maintains, however, that the lower court's judgment correctly applied the gradualist doctrine when it confirmed that the dismissal was justified.
The court said, "We understand that the plaintiff has committed a very serious breach of contractual good faith and its breach is grounds for disciplinary dismissal."
Finally, it asserted that the fact that the employee had not been previously disciplined, that she did not conceal her identity (by putting her name on the bottle) or that the colleague did not suffer damage that caused him to take medical leave are "minor circumstances which, in this case, do not allow the conduct to be assessed with less severity, since what is definitive is that the accused, consciously, put the health of her colleagues in certain danger over a small matter".
In any event, this judgment is not final and an appeal may be lodged with the Supreme Court.
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