The Social Chamber of the Supreme Court has not even admitted an appeal in cassation by Canal Gestión Lanzarote, thus declaring final a judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands that obliged the company to restore to 70 retired Inalsa workers the right to free water supply up to a monthly limit of 15 cubic meters, which they lost when it subrogated the service.
This ruling is added to others that have been issued in the same sense, following lawsuits filed by other workers. At the beginning of last year, the TSJC already gave the reason to four former employees who had worked for the company between 20 and 28 years, and to whom it recognized the right to Canal Gestión to recognize the old "compensation for the constancy of work", which supposes the supply of free water. In addition, the court condemned the company to return to these former workers what was paid for water consumption since June 2015, when it took away this right.
After that ruling came another from the same Court, which is the one that has now been confirmed, giving the reason to another 70 employees and revoking a previous judgment of the Social Court number 1 of Arrecife that had dismissed the claim of these workers.
"The requirement of contradiction does not concur"
After learning of that ruling issued in February of last year, Canal Gestión filed an appeal in cassation for the unification of doctrine before the Supreme Court, considering that the pronouncement of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands was contradictory to that of other chambers. However, the Supreme Court has rejected the appeal in cassation filed by Canal Gestión, considering that the judgment of contrast that it presented has nothing to do with these facts. And it is that, in the case of the retired workers of Inalsa, signals that the right to the free supply of water, which "had had conventional origin", has from the subrogation of the service by Canal Gestión "contractual nature".
"By company agreement", it is stated in the judgment, "it was recognized with contractual effectiveness to the active workers subject to business subrogation and also to the passive/pensioners, at least implicitly by comparison with the widowed spouses of the former concessionaire's former workers, the right to free water consumption up to a certain limit or amount".
On the contrary, it points out that in the cause of contrast, which is a ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of Galicia that dismissed the claim of a former worker and pensioner who claimed the right to the free supply of electricity that he had enjoyed at the time, the claim of the latter is rejected because it "never" had "contractual origin", but was a right "recognized by the collective agreement" that "ceased to be so by the game of the succession of collective agreements over time".
Thus, the Supreme Court considers that "the requirement of contradiction does not concur" because "there are factual and legal differences that justify the rulings of different sign, without this deriving the existence of contradictory doctrines. Therefore, the Social Chamber of the high court declares the inadmissibility of the appeal filed by Canal Gestión and the firmness of the judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands that endorsed the right of the retired workers of Inalsa to have free water supply.
