The Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country (TSJPV) ratified the conviction handed down by the Social Court 2 of Donostia against a company which hired a private detective to follow an employee in a situation of temporary incapacity. The TSJPV thus rejects the appeal filed by the company against the decision of the aforementioned court which annulled the sanction it had imposed on the worker for “fraud and violation of contractual good faith” and ordered it to compensate him for 15,000 euros for damages and losses. provoked.
As the court explains, the origin of this procedure dates back to September 2023 when the worker, who was in a situation of temporary incapacity for “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 which monitored the worker in a private golf club and during his stay outside the Basque Country in a second home.
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 no case will the intimate life of people that takes place in their homes or other reserved places be studied”, such as the aforementioned golf club. In addition, he ordered the company to compensate the worker with 15,000 euros for the damage caused.
The TSJPV now rejects the company’s appeal and upholds the lower court’s decision in its entirety. In this sense, let us recall 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 to noting that it was used to carry out an investigation. act of interference with the applicant’s right to privacy in the development of his temporary disability proceedings.
It also specifies that a pathological process such as the unspecified adaptive disorder from which the worker was then suffering “is not contraindicated in a sporting activity such as playing golf” and the fact of moving to a second home was not no more impact. This decision is not final and can be appealed to the Social Chamber of the Supreme Court.
