Except in the famous joke of the two workers at the foundry, that one in which a colleague pours cast iron on the back of the other and ends up arguing for details, work accidents are not damn funny. Its only mention leads to thinking of accidents in environments of great pain and caused by bad luck, recklessness or both. Circumstances typical of the pages of events where the worst part is carried by blue-collar currants. The case that the French Justice has just ratified as an accident at work is foreign to this cliché, although it also sounds funny. Its protagonist is the engineer of a multinational in work trip; the stage, a hotel in central France; and the circumstances, those of a night of sex ... that ends badly.

The events took place in February 2013, when Xavier X went to a hotel in the town of Meug-sur-Loire, in the northwest of the neighboring country, with a woman who was not his wife and the one he had met recently. After having sex at the hotel, which was not the one the company had reserved for him, the man died of a heart attack , as in a bad desktop movie. Well, the Court of Appeal of Paris, where the judicial process came two years ago, has ruled that the death of the employee is attributable to an accident in the workplace, since it took place during the performance of the same . The great paradox is that, in addition, it has condemned the employer - the construction of railway electrical infrastructure TSO - to pay the deceived widow of the victim 80% of the deceased's monthly salary until the day he had reached retirement.

To this end, the Gala Court has dismissed the arguments of the company, which insisted that the events occurred outside working hours . He has also rejected the allegation that Xavier had purposely interrupted his professional trip for a strictly personal reason: to maintain "an adulterous relationship with a complete unknown . " A way of trying to make the judges see that his death was not attributable to work, but to the sexual act itself, and that it has not been taken into account at the time of sentencing.

«In this particular case, the work time involved in the work trip covers the night that the employee has to be away from home . Throughout the period, it remains under the protection of the employer, whether the accident occurs as a result of professional activity or daily life, ”explained a spokesman for the court to the Euronews channel. The magistrates consider that "a sexual encounter is an act of daily life as well as showering or eating . "

Where does a workday begin and end? Would the Spanish Justice have acted in the same way in a similar case? What responsibility would the employer have here during the trip of one of his employees? Martín Godino , managing partner of Sagardoy Abogados and recognized in 2017 as one of the 30 best lawyers in the world in the labor area, explains that the first law on occupational accidents in Spain is 1900 and that when this terminology was defined «usual work It was that of the man who entered the factory, was eight hours and left . That is why he urges to distinguish between the accident that occurs during working time - the most common - and on the occasion of work , which is the one that gives rise to more litigation. In this category would enter the accident in itinere , the one that occurs on the round trip from the house to the office. Or a work trip like that of the late Xavier.

Godino admits that the concept on the occasion of work is "very indeterminate" and that "in Spain it probably would not have been granted [the recognition of an accident at work], because it would not be understood that the moment at which the death occurred is a circumstance linked to work. It would have been more difficult for this thesis to prosper, but not impossible . And he adds that in our country the suicide of a worker who had suffered bullying by his boss or the infarction of another employee while taking some rods has been considered a work accident, “because it was understood that there was a link with what happened in the job".

Víctor Ruiz Ezpeleta , a professor at EAE Business School, looks for those occupations that involve moving regularly to affirm that the sentence that obliges the French engineer's family to be economically repaired complies with the law. “ If someone has to go to a trade show or visit customers, all the time they stay away from home should be considered work time . I put a real case: the companion of a flight attendant friend has been hit by a vehicle in Brazil. He is in the hospital with different fractures, and this has been considered a work accident. He was not physically on the plane, but for work reasons he must be out of his place of residence. This type of thing must be included in the contracts, insofar as they can be as specific as possible.

There are more cases in which recognition as a work accident has gone out of the ordinary. Last February, the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia gave this category to the shooting of a man in Níjar (Almería). The deceased worked in a hotbed in that locality and was the head of the woman of the author of the shots, to which this one also took the life.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court considered an accident in work in itinere and, therefore, covered by the Social Security and private mutual benefits provided for in the case, the accident suffered by an employee after bringing two colleagues home of work .

But perhaps the most bizarre case occurred in 2001, the Catalan Supreme Court described the death of an employee who died in another traffic accident as a work accident when he returned home ... just the day he had submitted his resignation to the Company where I worked.

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