For almost all of us when we talk about causes that lead to immediate dismissal from a company, watching pornography in the office may come to mind. But the Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia has a very different opinion: It is not sufficient cause for dismissal.
This has been stated in a recent ruling that elDiario.es has purchased through the EFE agency where a court in Granollers in Barcelona has determined that the dismissal of a job in 2020 is inadmissible. All of this after being caught masturbating at his workplace while watching a pornographic page.
The TSJC considers the dismissal of a worker to be unfair
And it was a co-worker who detected that this worker was masturbating in 2020. while watching erotic content. He was automatically fired after the scandal, but appealed to the courts. In the investigation phase it was only confirmed that this man had watched porn, but no reference was made to masturbation. Something that the company did not resort to.
Due to this, the judges of the TSJC have only been able to verify that the The worker’s “only negligent conduct” was watching pornographic videos in the workplace on various occasions. And although on the cameras you can see how he could have been masturbating, it has not been taken into account when making this decision.
But the big surprise comes when watching erotic videos is not grounds for dismissal. The ruling highlights it as follows: “By itself, viewing sexual content during the work day on some occasions cannot be argued to constitute a serious violation of contractual good faith and the inhabitant is culpable for the dismissal of the offending worker.”
In this way, pornographic viewing “does not meet the seriousness” that supports the dismissal of the worker. Furthermore, the court emphasizes that the dismissal is unfair because the company He did not specify in his dismissal letter how many times he had been “caught” masturbating beyond saying “on some occasions.” This is in addition to the fact that the employee did not “exhibit” the practice to other colleagues.
That is why, although it may seem like a joke, the employee will have the right to return to his job three years after being caught doing this activity. And all for an error when specifying how many times he had masturbated and because watching porn is not serious behavior according to the court.
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