The Superior Court of Justice of Canarias (TSJC) has ratified the nullity of the disciplinary dismissal that Mercadona executed against an employee for suffering from progressive multiple sclerosis, "a serious illness".
The Social Chamber of the TSJC in Las Palmas has also agreed to forward the judgment to the Labor and Social Security Inspectorate, given "the seriousness" of the violation of the worker's rights by the company, and so that they "carry out the actions they deem appropriate".
Thus, it has ratified the reinstatement of the affected person to her job and the company's condemnation to pay 15,000 euros for moral damages derived from the violation of fundamental rights. It also imposes the costs of the appeal on the chain -Mercadona S.A.-, setting their amount at 800 euros.
The ruling dismisses Mercadona's appeal in its entirety and upholds the previous lower court ruling, which found discrimination due to illness, unlawful interference with privacy, and improper use of the worker's health data during her temporary incapacity period.
The resolution is based on the proven fact that the worker, who had been providing services since 2017 at a Mercadona center in Fuerteventura, had been diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis in 2021 and her position had already had to be adapted to avoid load manipulation and forced postures. In June 2025, it states, a neurological report incorporated into the proceedings described a "primary progressive multiple sclerosis, a disabling and progressive disease" and recommended "avoiding physical overload and maintaining prolonged standing without adequate rest".
Despite this, the company activated during her leave a continuous monitoring by its medical service and, later, commissioned an investigation by private detectives which culminated in the employee's dismissal in September 2025 for alleged malingering and carrying out activities incompatible with her recovery.
Constitutional Limits
The Chamber does not accept this account. On the contrary, it considers that the company's actions crossed "the constitutional limits protected by Article 18 of the Spanish Constitution" and supports the conclusion of the lower court judge that the required collaboration with the company's medical service was "exacerbated", in an "especially intense" manner since the beginning of the temporary incapacity.
The ruling underlines as particularly serious facts that the company doctor accompanied the worker to a Neurology consultation at the public hospital, without this initiative coming from the patient herself, and that she even proposed a "three-way" meeting with a company coordinator "so that he can meet you and discuss your situation".
For the court, "the reasons for such personalized accompaniment" are not understood, nor are those for that meeting proposal, and both actions demonstrate "an action that is not only unprofessional on the part of the occupational medicine specialist but also, contrary to the principle of confidentiality and the obligation to protect sensitive data".
The Chamber shares the conviction that there was a transfer of confidential medical data from the prevention service to the company, at least with regard to an examination appointment held on July 31, 2025, at a different center from the employee's usual workplace.
A private detective hired by Mercadona
The ruling considers it highly significant that the detective hired by Mercadona appeared precisely there and at that time. "Many doubts arise regarding the reasons why the private detective began following the worker at 11:30 a.m. at the place where she had an appointment with the prevention doctor," reasons the Chamber, in a place that "does not correspond to the operator's workplace."
Hence, it validates the lower court's conclusion about "the transfer of information to the company by the prevention service." Based on this reasoning, the Court declares the detective evidence correctly excluded from the process. The report, says the resolution, was prepared based on "the transmission of information and processing of absolutely confidential data affecting the worker's health," so that its obtaining violated the right to privacy and the protection of sensitive data.
The ruling is blunt in stating that the detective went to monitor the employee "at a workplace that was not theirs and at a time when the worker had privately met with the doctor from the prevention service," so "it can only be concluded that there has been a data leak." That "participation in obtaining illicit information" leads to the nullity of the evidence. But even apart from that illegality, the Court adds, as an additional consideration, that the content of the surveillance does not reveal any fraud either.
"Not all activity developed during a situation of temporary incapacity can be classified as disloyal conduct punishable by dismissal," the court recalls, insisting that only that which disturbs recovery or reveals simulation would be. In this case, it concludes, "no reprehensible action by the worker has occurred," while the company "incurs in various legal and constitutional breaches already described, with the sole intention of penalizing with the termination of the contract the worker who has had the bad luck to fall ill and be affected by a serious illness."