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In October 2020, a bus was completing the Cuenca-Madrid route on the Valencia highway when it encountered a routine control by the Civil Guard. A control in which the driver of the vehicle tested positive for cocaine with 39 people on board. He was suddenly fired by the company and his case has served for the Supreme Court, in a ruling released this Friday, to establish that testing positive for cocaine while driving is grounds for disciplinary dismissal in the case of professional drivers. Previously, the Superior Court of Castilla-La Mancha had agreed with him and had ordered him to be reinstated or compensated, understanding that consuming cocaine while driving may deserve legal reproach but not dismissal.
A school bus driver with 16 students tests positive for cocaine
Further
His dismissal passed, first of all, through the hands of a social court in Cuenca, which endorsed the disciplinary dismissal of this bus driver. He understood that first sentence that the facts were “very serious” since “he not only breaches a labor duty” but also “commits an administrative offense in road matters.” For this first judge, the conduct of the driver “endangers the lives of the people transported and those who circulate on public roads, in addition to damaging the image of the company”, which had to return the price of the tickets at 39 passengers.
It was the Superior Court of Castilla-La Mancha that declared the dismissal unfair and forced Auto Res to reinstate him and compensate him with almost 85,000 euros. That second ruling recognized that the agreement includes drug use as a cause for dismissal, but only when cocaine influences driving in some way, taking into account that in this case there is no evidence of erratic driving by this worker. “As it has not been proven that the actor’s driving was influenced by the consumption of toxic substances, regardless of the moral reproach that may be made against him, the conduct is not enough to justify the dismissal,” said the Superior Court of Castilla-La Mancha.
It was the company that brought the case before the Supreme Court, where the social court has just endorsed the disciplinary dismissal of this driver with the support of the Prosecutor’s Office. He did so alleging that in other similar cases the courts had given the green light to sudden dismissal. For example, when the Galician courts upheld the dismissal of a bus driver caught by the Local Police in Ceboliño (Ourense) behind the wheel after consuming cannabis, although it did not obviously affect his driving either.
The Supreme Court judges explain, first of all, that in the road transport sector the incidence of a positive for alcohol or drugs has more serious consequences than in other sectors, adding that it constitutes an infraction even if the consumption of substances does not have consequences noticeable while driving. The impact on the company and its employment relationship is “clear”, according to the Supreme Court: “It affects the reputation of the employer himself, ultimately resulting in his detriment. Not because of the refund of the amount of the tickets but, especially, because of the discredit that the news about what happened entails and the possible mistrust that may arise from it”, say the judges after highlighting that it also endangers the lives of the clients.
It also highlights that a person who gets on a bus does so trusting that the driver has not recently used cocaine. “The expectations of those who use public transport point to the necessary confidence that the people who drive the vehicles not only have the precise knowledge but are also in the right conditions,” says the Supreme Court. Taking cocaine is not punishable conduct by itself, the judges acknowledge, but “the situation is very different when you agree to carry out your activity as a transporter without prior verification that the substances ingested are no longer present in your body.”
