A Spanish worker received two salary transfers where, in the bank transfer order, the field corresponding to the beneficiary appeared with the word “zumbada”, equivalent to “crazy”. The case, published by the Spanish portal Noticias Trabajo, specialized in legal and labor matters, ended up in court and ended with a decision that recognizes the violation of the right to honor (good name) and dignity in a work context.
The Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country (TSJPV) ordered the company to pay compensation of ten thousand euros to the worker, an amount that the court considered adequate to compensate for the moral damages suffered. The sentence is joint and several: it covers the employing company and the partner who ordered the salary transfers in question.
According to the same source, the woman had worked as an administrator, since 2019, in a condominium management company where one of the partners was her ex-husband. Both had a son in common, born in 2021 and with a recognized disability, and were involved in a contentious divorce process. The professional and personal relationship was already weakened, a scenario that, according to the publication, included a complaint for gender-based violence presented by the worker in September 2023, which was archived by a court decision for provisional relief in January 2025.
The origin of the conflict
The decisive episode occurred on November 29, 2023, when the worker received two transfers corresponding to her salaries for September and October of that year. In the order of salary transfers, in the field corresponding to the beneficiary, instead of their name, the word “zumbada” appeared.
Noticias Trabajo states that the person who ordered and processed the payments was not the ex-husband, but rather the other partner of the company, who acknowledged, in a previous criminal case for insults, that he was the one who carried out the two transfers.
The worker decided to take legal action, through an action to protect fundamental rights, alleging violation of her right to honor and dignity and asking for compensation of 10 thousand euros. The court of first instance, Labor Court No. 2 of Bilbao, rejected the request, understanding that moral harassment (workplace harassment) had not been demonstrated, which is why it disregarded the claim for compensation at that stage.
The high court ruled in favor
The Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country reversed the decision. He considered that the word used in the transfers had a clearly insulting nature and undermined the right to honor, even though it had not been publicly disseminated on a massive scale.
The judges explain that, as it is a bank payment, the information included in the transfer order is not limited to a completely private scope: bank staff and other workers with legitimate access to the records may have contact with the description, which eliminates the idea of an insult confined to the intimate sphere.
According to the publication, the judges also highlighted that there was no personal or intimate relationship between the worker and the partner responsible for salary transfers, unlike what happened with her ex-husband, who was the other partner in the company. This data reinforced the reading that the humiliation occurred in a work context: the expression was used when paying salaries, in a strictly professional relationship, and not in a private conflict between two people.
For this reason, the company and the partner responsible for the transfers were considered responsible for the offense, qualified, by reference to the Spanish legal framework, as conduct subsumable to a very serious infraction, in accordance with article 8.11 of the Law on Infractions and Sanctions in the Social Order (LISOS), which covers acts of the employer contrary to the dignity and respect due to the worker.
Compensation and the legal framework
To establish the amount of compensation, the TSJPV used the sanctioning framework provided for in LISOS for very serious infractions against the dignity of the worker. This frame, at the minimum grade, goes from 7,501 to 30,000 euros. The court understood that the 10 thousand euros requested by the worker were proportional to the moral damage suffered and fell within this minimum level, and therefore set this amount as compensation for violation of the fundamental right to honor.
According to the ruling itself, the decision is not yet final: it is possible to file a review appeal (recurso de casación para unificación de doctrina) to the Spanish Supreme Court.
And in Portugal?
In a national framework, situations of offense to the worker’s dignity may constitute moral harassment or a serious violation of the employer’s duties. The Portuguese Labor Code expressly prohibits harassment (article 29) and imposes on the employer the duty to respect the personality rights and dignity of the worker (articles 14, 16 and 127).
The practice of discriminatory acts or acts that violate dignity may give rise to compensation for material and non-material damages, including moral damages linked to humiliation and good name (see article 28 of the Labor Code, in conjunction with the general rules of civil liability and article 295, no. 1, on compensation for damages resulting from the employer’s culpable actions).
Portuguese jurisprudence has been recognizing compensation for non-pecuniary damage in cases of moral harassment or serious documented offenses: for example, through email messages, internal communications or other written records, whenever the violation of personality rights and the existence of relevant moral damage can be proven.
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