A high court in Spain has made a landmark ruling that an electrician who may have had over three litres of beer during a single workday should not have been fired - given that his drinking did not reduce his “mental faculties.”
The court in the region of Murcia, located in southeastern Spain, ruled that the electrical company that employed that man, who worked for the company for a whopping 27 years, should not have dismissed the electrician in September 2021 and gave the order to either pay the man nearly €50,000 in compensation or reemploy him.
The man was initially fired after a private investigator was hired by the company to follow the electrician in July 2021.
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However, according to the man’s dismissal letter - as seen by the Guardian - in early July the man as well as one of his colleagues had been seen drinking beer early that morning.
Then later that day at lunchtime, alongside some food, the pair also bought four cans of San Miguel and a litre bottle of Estrella de Levante. However, this wasn’t the end to the electrician’s day of drinking, with the man getting one more beer before driving the van back to the company office.
In its judgement, the Spanish court ruled that there was “no proof” his “physical and mental faculties were reduced or diminished”.
The court also made note that the company did not take into account the hot summer and the impact it could have on the man’s drinking.
The judgement said, as quoted by the Guardian: “At no time did the private detective make mentions of signs of inebriation or clumsiness when it came to walking.
“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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