Sometimes drinking on the job doesn’t always land in trouble and the court takes the side of the drunk employee over the authoritative boss.
A court in Murcia, Spain, declared that an electrical company was wrong to terminate one of its electricians for drinking more than three liters of beer during work hours. It was ruled a wrongful termination because the company failed to prove he was drunk.
Drinking alcohol during work hours can be a reasonable explanation to kick the employee out of the office but that only holds true if the employer can prove the employee was impaired to the point where it was impacting workplace performance.
The court ordered the company to re-hire the worker or pay them $52,000 for failing to show that their drinking impacted their work responsibilities.
The court also added that the company failed to take into consideration the hot summers which justify beer consumption. “Another factor to be borne in mind is that this relates to the month of July in Murcia and Cartagena, where the climatic conditions and the geographical habits should be considered,” the court ruling read.
The fired electrician had been working for the company for 27 years and a private detective submitted evidence that he had been regularly drinking on the job for several weeks. The detective was recruited by the company to keep a watchful eye on the employee and he caught him drinking a heavy amount of beer throughout the day.
In the electrician’s dismissal letter, the company wrote that he even stopped at a bar for morning drinks. During the lunch hour, the employee was caught buying food with his coworkers, four cans of San Miguel beer and a liter bottle of Estrella de Levante beer. In the afternoon, the electrician was spotted drinking a can of beer and another in the evening before driving a company van.
The Murcian high court wasn’t satisfied with the evidence from the detective and it demanded the company to compensate the man or take him back on the team.
“At no time did the private detective make mentions of signs of inebriation or clumsiness when it came to walking,” the court explained. “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.”
The court deemed it acceptable since he was taking alcoholic drinks with coworkers and they added the ordered food “needed refreshments.” The court explained there is no way to prove how much each person had drunk and whether it had them impaired.
Cheers to the handyman. His drinking wasn’t a threat to the paycheque.