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A Spanish court has upheld the decision of a company to dismiss a worker who posted a video of her dancing in high heels while on sick leave following an operation to treat a bunion.
The employee allegedly was able to carry out a "wide range of artistic activities, incompatible with her pathology" from the media she posted on TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, Facebook and X accounts during the ten months of sick leave she had due to the operation on her foot.
This was stated in the Canary Islands High Court of Justice ruling, to which SUR has had access. The employee was accused of dancing and jumping in high heels in a video while she was on temporary leave "accruing social security benefits and representing a cost for this company", the ruling states.
The ruling goes on to say that such behaviour "denotes antisocial conduct, which implies a transgression of the contractual good faith inherent in the employment contract with this company and involves manifest fraud and disloyalty to her employer".
The woman started working at the production company in 2021 and in June 2023 she was dismissed because of the videos published on social media. Also, days before her dismissal, she published the 'making of' video of a song, in which she appeared dancing and singing in high heels and announced that she was going to participate in a gay pride event.
"On the same day, a statement by the actor appeared on digital media in which she said about the recording: "Something happened. I laugh now, but at the time it was hard. I had recently had an operation for a fall on my right foot and wearing heels was difficult, especially when dancing. It was horrible pain. The company considered that his conduct involved a breach of contractual good faith, fraud and disloyalty."
In disagreement with the dismissal, the worker sued the production company and requested that it be declared null and void because she was on sick leave at the time of dismissal. However, a court in Las Palmas in Gran Canaria confirmed that the dismissal was fair.
Not satisfied, she appealed the ruling to a higher court and, in the High Court of Justice, she requested a review of the proven facts, although the judges agreed with the lower court's ruling.
It also argued that the dismissal was unlawful for failure to set the date in the letter of dismissal. But "nothing could be further from the truth", said the court. "The letter of dismissal is clear in stating that the effects of the dismissal will be after the three-day hearing period following notification of the letter". The company also stopped paying social security payments one day after the dismissal came into effect.
The worker also complained that article 54.2.e of the workers' statute and the audiovisual production agreement had been violated. She claimed that her medical records showed that she was able to walk and that she was showing an improvement that would end with her sick leave on 30 June. But this argument was not accepted by the judges because the videos had taken place between September 2022 and June 2023. They therefore upheld the lower court's ruling.
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