Balearic high court upholds dismissal of a lawyer with 26 years' service over nine unauthorised telework days

The Tribunal Superior de Justicia de les Illes Balears has upheld the disciplinary dismissal of an in-house lawyer employed since 1998, over nine days worked from home in August 2024 when office attendance was required. Her employer’s internal rules required prior written approval from her line manager for remote days; she had obtained that approval in a previous year and did not seek it on this occasion. The court found “manifest disregard” for the internal rules and declined to apply the principle of gradualism, despite 26 years of service and an unblemished disciplinary record. Palma’s Juzgado de lo Social nº 2 had already confirmed the dismissal at first instance.

Why this matters. Remote working that has been informally tolerated is not the same as remote working that has been agreed, and Spanish courts are treating the gap between the two as a disciplinary matter rather than a misunderstanding. Long service and a clean record did not soften the outcome. If your remote days rest on a manager having said yes in the past, or on nobody objecting, that is a weaker position than it feels — the protection comes from the written agreement Ley 10/2021 requires, not from custom.

Spanish law requires a signed remote-work agreement for anyone working remotely more than 30% of their hours over a three-month reference period. That agreement has to name where the work is done and how it will be supervised. The exposure this case reveals sits in the informal arrangements below that threshold, or running alongside it, where nothing is written down.

What to watch. A further appeal to the Tribunal Supremo is reportedly still possible. A Supreme Court ruling on proportionality in telework dismissals would apply well beyond one employer.