An administrator with a medical condition marked by the consequences of breast cancer and depression, has not been able to get the Justice to recognize her permanent disability after the Superior Court of Justice of Aragon concluded that her ailments do not prevent her from carrying out her daily work. The Chamber explains that, although her physical pathologies require certain precautions, these do not conflict with the tasks of an office job, and that a psychological limitation of such intensity as to separate her from the labor market has not been proven.
According to the ruling of the TSJ (available at this link of the Judiciary), the worker, after a long period of temporary disability, requested that Social Security recognize a disability pension, but the entity denied it at the end of 2024, arguing that her injuries did not reach a sufficient degree of reduction in her capacity.
Faced with these facts, the worker decided to go to court and, in the first instance, the Social Court number 1 of Zaragoza also dismissed her claim. Given this, the affected person decided to appeal (a type of appeal in the workplace) to insist that her state of physical and mental health made her incapable of working.
Apparently and according to the facts, the woman was diagnosed in 2018 with infiltrating ductal cancer in the right breast. After undergoing chemotherapy, a bilateral mastectomy and several reconstruction surgeries that presented complications, he was left with chronic pain in the axillary and pectoral area, as well as limited mobility in his right shoulder. The doctors prescribed clear precautions such as not carrying weights, avoiding sudden movements against resistance and keeping the arm elevated when possible. On a psychological level, the worker suffers a moderate to severe depressive episode, with feelings of hopelessness and anxiety, for which she receives extensive psychiatric treatment.
In her appeal, the plaintiff’s defense tried to add to the sentence that her psychiatric condition caused “memory and sustained attention failures,” “severe difficulty concentrating,” and that the heavy medication affected her alertness. Even so, the court refused to modify the text, remembering that absolute permanent disability is reserved for those who lack “real powers to complete, with some efficiency, the tasks” of any job, and that the medical evidence must be analyzed as a whole, without imposing the interested vision of the plaintiff on the impartial criteria of the judge of first instance.
The main debate, therefore, focused on determining whether the sum of all these problems prevented him, at least, from exercising his administrative profession. To understand it in a simple way, permanent disability is not automatically granted for having suffered a very serious illness, but rather for how it affects one’s ability to carry out one’s usual profession or any other.
The TSJ values that the office position does not require physical effort and rules out cognitive impairment
The court carefully analyzed how the woman’s ailments matched her daily life in front of the computer (which is the subject of the permanent disability). Regarding the consequences of breast cancer and the problems in her right arm, the magistrates conclude that the prohibition of gaining weight or avoiding sudden movements “does not imply a permanent disability for a sedentary, effort-free profession such as administrative secretary.”
On the other hand, when addressing the serious depression and anxiety she suffers, the TSJ points out that, although the woman states that she has complaints about her memory and concentration, “there is no report in the file that justifies cognitive impairment to any degree.” That is, the court lacks objective medical evidence that demonstrates that his mind cannot handle normal administrative work. For all these reasons, the Superior Court of Justice of Aragon dismisses the appeal and confirms the previous ruling.