For a whole year a worker suffered the uncertainty of not receiving your payments on time and, after two legal refusals, he finally got the Supreme Court to side with him.
Almost 50,000 euros of compensation
This case dates back to the period between April 2019 and March 2020. The complainant worker received his remuneration with an average delay of 10.5 days as agreed with the company that employed him.
To cite an example, for that first late payroll payment of April 2019 the company even decided to split the same in two paymentswhich did not become effective respectively until May 20 and May 31, 2019.
Far from being a specific case, the company kept making the same delays during the aforementioned period, so the worker denounced the company and this practice considering that the delay in the payment of salary was serious enough to justify the indemnified termination of his contract.
This is reflected in the Article 50.1 b) of the Workers’ Statutewhere it is stated “The following will be just causes for the worker to request the termination of the contract: Non-payment or continued delays in the payment of the agreed salary”.
Judicial ruling favorable to the worker
At first, and despite having a legal basis in the ET that supported the worker’s version, the Social Court No. 15 of Madrid dismissed the claim. The worker decided not to sit idly by and filed an appeal that was dismissed by the Labor Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice on the grounds that the average delay was not excessive, and that, as it was a repeated practice, it was perfectly foreseeable.
Even so, the worker continued to claim and filed an appeal for the unification of doctrine, proposing as a contrasting sentence the one issued by the Fourth Chamber of the TS of December 22, 2008.
“In both cases there have been delays in the payment of wages of a similar average percentage, and for an extended period of time -throughout a year in the appeal, and a little more than two in the contrast-, coinciding that the respective companies have economic difficulties, even more so the contrast that was bankrupt, which would abound in the contradiction a fortiori “.
Finally, the Supreme Court agreed with the worker and established that the situation experienced by him was serious enough since the late payment was not sporadic but repeated over time.
With these arguments, the High Court ends up revoking the sentence handed down by the Social Court, declaring the termination of the employment contract and condemning the company to pay the compensation provided for unfair dismissalthat is, in the present case, 48,232.73 euros.
