The Mercadona supermarket chain found itself at the center of a controversial legal dispute in Spain after the company hired a detective to monitor one of its employees.
According to information provided by Noticias de Trabajo, the company granted one of its employees a reduced work schedule of two hours so that he could care for his disabled brother. This employee had been working at a Mercadona store since April 2015. Previously, he had already received a reduced schedule to care for his son and then requested a new schedule to assist his brother, who has 65% incapacity and requires medication monitoring.
The company approved this request, setting an evening shift ending at 7:30 PM so that the employee could fulfill his care duties, as his brother needed to take medication at 8:00 PM.
Nevertheless, the company hired a private detective to verify whether the employee was actually using the reduced schedule to care for his brother. As a result of surveillance conducted in June and July 2024, the employee was dismissed on July 30 of the same year. Mercadona justified the dismissal by citing a breach of contract terms and accusing the employee of abusing trust.
The case was brought to court, where justice sided with the employee, obliging Mercadona to reinstate him and pay the owed wages. The court analyzed the detective's report and ruled that out of 11 days of observation, only two instances were proven where the employee was not in contact with his brother. Thus, the court deemed that the absence from work on those two days was not a sufficiently serious violation to warrant the maximum penalty—dismissal—emphasizing the need for 'absolute proportionality' between the offense and the sanction.
Furthermore, the court considered the continuation of the investigation against the employee by the company during his sick leave, when the employment contract was suspended, to be unjustified. The court in Oviedo upheld the employee's rights, declaring his dismissal invalid and ordering Mercadona to reinstate him under the previous conditions and pay the unpaid salary. Despite the supermarket chain's attempt to appeal the decision to the High Court of Justice of Asturias, justice once again supported the employee's side.
