The Psychosocial Risk Assessment necessary also as legal protection

The suicide of Juan Manuel, who was 53 years old when he took his own life one morning in April 2021, was a work accident. This was ruled on February 27 of this year by the Superior Court of Justice of Cantabria, and condemned the Social Security Institute and the Mutual Company of a company to pay the widow's and orphan's pensions derived from professional contingencies to a woman and her daughter for the suicide of the father.

There was no record of a psychiatric history or previous psychic pathologies, but nevertheless there was an important labor problem that was what led him to make the fatal decision. Although the suicide occurred outside the workplace, it had a lot to do with it, since he had recently been accused of workplace harassment and his company had sanctioned him with suspension of employment and transfer to another center, in addition to the fact that he was expected to commit suicide. filed a criminal complaint against him by the harassed partner.

At Ergasia we have analyzed it in detail and one of the main conclusions we draw is that the case only reinforces the importance of systematically addressing the harassment protocol and psychosocial risk assessment. In the scenario of this case it is clear that the company had a harassment protocol, because it sanctioned the worker as a result of its application. The sentence does not enter into the question of whether the suicide could have been prevented, it only assesses the question of whether the contingency (widow's and orphan's pensions) must be paid via common contingencies or labor contingencies. But once the case has been declared as an accident at work, proceedings could be initiated (via labor inspection or criminal proceedings) to find out if the company has the necessary preventive measures to avoid these cases, and have an assessment of psychosocial risks. It could be basic to avoid these possible demands of responsibilities.

Let us remember that the sanctions and crimes typified in these cases are due to a lack of preventive measures, and in this case only the existence of measures in case of harassment has been demonstrated, up to now.