Supreme Court rules suicide of supermarket worker in Cantabria as work-related incident

The Supreme Court has confirmed that the suicide of a supermarket chain worker in Cantabria in April 2021 was ruled as a work accident. The Social Chamber rejected the appeal filed by the company against a previous ruling that considered the suicide a work accident. The court ordered the payment of compensation and widow’s and orphan’s pensions to the deceased worker’s family. The widow had appealed against a previous ruling that concluded the suicide was not work-related, but rather due to marital problems and the worker’s father’s illness.

The Cantabrian Superior Court found a clear temporal connection between the worker’s work-related problems and his suicide. The court noted that the problems began just three months before the fatal outcome, with them being very present in the days leading up to the worker’s decision to take his own life. The court found that the worker’s concerns about workplace harassment and potential criminal action against him were directly related to his decision to end his life.

The court dismissed the company’s argument that the death was not work-related, citing a lack of previous psychiatric history or psychological pathologies that could have contributed to the suicide. The court emphasized that the worker’s work-related problems, specifically related to workplace harassment and the resulting lawsuit, were the primary factors contributing to his decision. The ruling imposed the payment of 300 euros in costs to the appellant and declared the inadmissibility of the company’s appeal.

In another case cited by the appellant regarding the suicide of a bank director, the Supreme Court found that the circumstances leading to the death were different from the supermarket worker’s case. In the bank director’s case, family and work-related stressors were identified as contributing factors, but they did not conclusively prove that the exclusive cause of death was related to work. The Supreme Court noted the differences between the two cases and upheld the previous ruling that the supermarket worker’s suicide was a work accident.