A Spanish worker was fired after remaining about a month without attending work, following the refusal of permanent disability by the Spanish National Institute of Social Security. The woman had started medical leave on March 7, 2023 and, after reaching the maximum period of temporary incapacity, the Social Security opened an ex officio process to assess whether there was a permanent disability. In April 2025, it concluded that sufficiently serious anatomical or functional reductions had not been demonstrated to justify this recognition.
Just days before the decision was known, the worker went to the company's premises and informed her direct supervisor that she did not intend to return. After the permanent disability was refused and her employment situation was regularized, with effects from April 15, the woman reported to work for only one day and stopped attending again. The company sent her three communications by registered mail (burofax), demanding immediate return and justification for the absences, but the worker neither resumed her duties nor provided any valid explanation.
On May 15, the worker started a new temporary incapacity situation. Five days later, at 19:43 on May 20, the company sent her another registered mail communication notifying her of disciplinary dismissal for repeated and unjustified absences. The worker later claimed that she had been on vacation during the period she was absent, but the court rejected this argument, noting that the company had a written procedure for requesting and confirming vacation that had not been followed and that the contract stipulated that annual leave should preferably be taken in August.
The Superior Court of Justice of Galicia confirmed the disciplinary dismissal, considering that the company demonstrated that the decision resulted from the unjustified absences and not from the employee's health condition. The judges concluded that the worker had accumulated absences for about a month, had attended only one day, and had ignored successive formal requests to return or justify the absences. The existence of a medical leave at the time of dismissal did not automatically render the termination void, since Spanish law requires a relationship between the illness and the business decision, which was not demonstrated in this case.
