Spanish firm wrong to fire electrician for drinking alcohol during working day, court rules

theguardian.com:

A Spanish court has ruled that a company was wrong to fire an electrician who may have drunk more than three litres of beer in one day because it had not proved that his consumption had left him “inebriated, intoxicated or drunk”, or unable to do his job.

The high court in the south-eastern region of Murcia found the electrical company had provided insufficient grounds for the man’s dismissal and ordered it to reinstate the sacked worker, or pay him €47,000 (£42,000) in compensation. It also noted that the company had failed to take into account the effect the hot Murcian summer could have had on the man’s drinking.

The man, who had worked for the company for 28 years, was sacked in September 2021 after a private detective hired by his employers followed him and his company van over the course of a few days that July.

According to his dismissal letter, on 5 July, the man and one of his colleagues had been observed stopping for a drink at a bar at 8.27am – although the detective did not specify whether that drink had been alcoholic. At lunchtime that day, the pair bought a loaf of bread, some food, four cans of San Miguel beer and a litre bottle of Estrella de Levante beer. Later the same afternoon, the man was seen drinking another can of beer. A little before 6.30pm, he was seen buying and drinking another can of beer before driving back to the company’s base in Murcia to leave the van there.

A fortnight later, he and two colleagues were seen drinking a total of seven litres of beer between mid-morning and the end of their lunchbreak. Later that day, the man was spotted drinking two 330ml cans of Heineken before drinking another can of beer and heading back to the company’s offices. Six days later, he was seen drinking a