The Social Chamber of the Basque Superior Court of Justice (TSJPV) has upheld the condemnation of the Barakaldo City Council for creating a «hostile environment» against an interim lawyer by partitioning her office, «isolating» her from the rest of the administrative staff. The ruling confirms the imposition of a 50% surcharge, the maximum legal amount, on the Social Security benefits the civil servant is to receive due to the Council's «frank and decided unwillingness» to employ her after being forced to rehire her.

The employee worked as an interim legal advisor under the General Secretariat and took leave due to incapacity in 2019. A year earlier, the civil servant had claimed payment of several supplements, which led to a «conflictive situation that generated a poor work climate,» according to the subsequent report by the Labour Inspectorate. After activating the harassment protocol, this was ruled out, although the work risk was classified as «high» and immediate measures were requested.

Following the conflict, the City Council dismissed the lawyer in January 2020, but a court declared the decision null and ordered her reinstatement in October 2021. A month later, the civil servant returned to her job, but by the end of March 2022, she was again on temporary incapacity leave due to this labor dispute.

It was precisely that month when the City Council informed the civil servant that her double office, which she shared with the administrative assistant of the legal advisory service, would be converted into two independent spaces. A partial partition existed between the two workstations, «in order to enable one of them as a new office for the Deputy Secretary General of the City Council,» a newly created position. This redistribution resulted in a space that was «not very ergonomic and isolated from her team,» according to the ruling.

«Anxious-depressive disorder»

These events, combined with the alteration of the employee's supplements since her return and the administrative silence regarding her claims, «have caused mental illness in the plaintiff,» conclude the magistrates, leading to her work-related leave. Forensic reports confirm «severe anxious-depressive disorder» due to her work environment. Furthermore, Osalan's report indicates that the administration did not investigate previous work accidents or assess the psychosocial risks arising from the imposed changes.

The City Council argued that it had already been sanctioned for previous incidents in 2019, but the chamber considers that this sentence punishes new breaches that occurred between November 2021 and March 2022, thus there is no duplication of sanctions. This maximum legal surcharge is justified by the «gravity of the employer's breaches,» considering that the Council acted in «clear confrontation with what was resolved by the courts in a final judgment» by not reinstating the employee under her previous conditions and disrupting her work environment.

The judges have confirmed the facts detected by the Labour Inspectorate and Osalan and consider that the civil servant's significant deterioration in health is the «responsibility» of the Administration, ruling out any «participation» by the employee. The ruling adds that the process «is preceded by acts of express hostility by an Administration that, even at that stage, should have adopted a different model of relations with the co-defendant beneficiary, and it is unacceptable that, in the exercise of adequate human resource management, the City Council distinguishes itself with messages and behaviors whose intention can hardly evidence anything other than a frank and decided unwillingness to count on the contribution of one of its public employees».

An appeal for doctrinal unification can be filed against this ruling before the Social Chamber of the Supreme Court.