The Superior Court of Justice of Cantabria (TSJC) has confirmed that a leave for anxiety because of the comments of co-workers is an accident at work. The lawsuit was filed by a woman who worked in the Ministry of Public Works as an operator in a seven-member crew, all men.
The Social Chamber of the TSJC, which dismisses the appeal filed by the Government of Cantabria against a judgment of the Social Court number 3 of Santander that upheld the demand, considers proven that the worker received "comments not related to her work activity" by two colleagues who did not call her by name, but they called her "the blonde, the official".
The sentence indicates that on one occasion one of them "made a gesture of running her over with a steamroller" and that, at another time, "before a labor discrepancy" one of them told the plaintiff "that he had nothing to talk to her and that he was going to take her ass."
As a result of these events, the worker "began to show sorrow, frequent lability, despair and anxiety", and went to receive "psychological and psychiatric help"
The woman is diagnosed with "major depression, generalized anxiety and post-traumatic stress" and presents "anxiety, ruminations, insomnia, depressed mood, apathy, abulia, anhedonia," the sentence adds.
The Government of Cantabria argued in its appeal against the judgment of the Social Court that the worker had not "managed to demonstrate that the psychological pressure she suffers derives from the labor conflict".
However, for the court there is a relationship between his work situation and the anxiety he suffers, given "the absence of previous processes of temporary disability due to anxiety" and "the clear link between the symptoms he presents and the labor conflict, a link that is clearly seen in the clinical reports that are collected. "
In this sense, it understands that "the requirement that work is the only causal factor of the leave is met, since there is a clear link between the labor factor and the clinical situation determining the disability, without there being any evidence of the confluence of other causes".
For the magistrates, the low "obeys a state of anxiety that derives from a situation of labor conflict, without the concurrence of any other determining cause", which is why they dismiss the appeal filed by the Government of Cantabria.
The judgment is not final and against it there is an appeal for the unification of doctrine that would be aired by the Fourth Chamber of the Supreme Court.
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