The Court of First Instance number 7 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has condemned in a final judgment the telephone company Orange to compensate with 900 euros to a former client for the "moral damages caused to him, by harassing him with calls, messages and undue charges when he rescinded the contract that linked them."
The sentence, dictated by magistrate José Ramón García Aragón on October 17, is based on an arbitration award provided by the injured party, whose chapter of proven facts is binding on the judge, since, as the resolution recalls, “it has the effect of res judicata between the parties.”
In December 2019, the citizen had proceeded to prove the cancellation with respect to the defendant “by delivering the corresponding devices” at the Orange office. “Despite this, the defendant proceeded to try to collect penalties for breach and consumption that were not appropriate, according to the chronology of events,” explain from the TSJC. The situation ended up causing him “impotence, anxiety and uncertainty.”
The judicial authority warns that the action of the plaintiff delivering the devices and disengaging from the company “implied the existence of an activity by the defendant tending to claim those undue amounts that, according to the documents provided to the file, involved constant calls, messages and communications to the plaintiff.”
The client had to “endure” that pressure despite his action and diligence, “which was known by the defendant.” Despite the efforts of the citizen to undo the ties with the telephone company, the ruling continues, the company “did not cease in its efforts, proceeding to send receipts and invoices for undue concepts,” which implied that the former client “deployed a repeated personal activity in order to try to solve the problems raised regarding the cancellation of the line unsuccessfully.” The judicial authority understands that the plaintiff endured “repeated pressure from the collection mechanisms of the defendant and the impossibility of the plaintiff to contact, in reverse, with the defendant entity.”
“This conduct for a fact not attributable to the plaintiff,” concludes the magistrate, “has caused him a personal detriment and affectation, by enduring a situation of uncertainty regarding the unjustified debt that was claimed (...) and the warnings and consequences that were indicated to him that would be carried out in case of not paying the amounts that, in all light, were undue.”
The magistrate rules that the “worries” generated by “the way” in which the company claimed amounts from the former client “necessarily implies a damage in the personal sphere of the plaintiff that should be susceptible of being compensated.”