A high court in Spain has ruled that a company should not have fired an employee for drinking on the job.
The electrician may have drank over three litres of beer in one day, however, the court said that his consumption did not leave him unable to do his job as he wasn't “inebriated, intoxicated or drunk”.
The Spanish court, located in Murcia, ordered the employer to either re-employ the man or to compensate him with €47,000. The court also said that the company failed to take into account the hot summer weather and the effect it may have had on the man's drinking.
According to The Guardian, the electrician's letter of dismissal stated he was being sacked due to “repeated and excessive alcohol consumption during the working day, which endangered his physical wellbeing and that of his workmates” both while on the job and at the wheel of his company vehicle.
The man who was employed by the company for 27 years was fired in September 2021 after the company hired a private investigator to follow the man in July of the same year.
The private detective said the man was seen with one of his colleagues stopping at a bar for a drink first thing in the morning, however, the investigator did not specify if the drink was an alcoholic beverage.
At lunchtime, the men bought some alcoholic drinks along with their food which included a litre bottle of Estrella de Levante beer and four cans of San Miguel beer. A little later the man was seen drinking another can of beer and then just before his day was out he was seen with another beer before driving the van back to the company premises.
The man was later seen drinking numerous alcoholic beverages over the course of a few weeks.
The judge didn't agree with the reasons for the dismissal and said “At no time did the private detective make mentions of signs of inebriation or clumsiness when it came to walking,”
The court added: “There is no proof – documentary, expert or witness – that unequivocally demonstrates that the man was under the effects of alcohol and was inebriated, intoxicated or drunk.
“Neither has it been proved, even circumstantially, that his physical and mental faculties were reduced or diminished during his tasks as an electrician, nor that he was impeded when he drove the company van at the end of the working day.”
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