The Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country has recognized the total permanent disability of a cleaning employee with fibromyalgia, severe osteoarthritis in the hands and chronic low back pain after Social Security initially denied her the benefit and tried to revoke it in court. In this way, the worker will have the right to a financial pension equivalent to 75% of her regulatory base, set at 1,248.02 euros per month.
The woman, born in 1963, worked as a cleaner, but her health began to worsen. According to her clinical condition, the worker had polyalgia with fibromyalgia, chronic back pain, osteoporotic vertebral crushes, severe osteoarthritis in the hands, Haglund syndrome in the right foot and a depressive disorder. Apparently, these ailments caused him great generalized pain and severe limitations, that is, he could not make fists or grips with his hands, and it was impossible for him to work standing or squatting.
Thus, due to this situation, the worker requested that Social Security recognize her permanent disability, but this was denied by the Provincial Directorate of the INSS of Bizkaia in January 2024. The medical court explained that her pathologies did not reach a sufficient degree of decrease in her work capacity to constitute a disability. After the denial, he presented a prior administrative claim, which was also rejected with the same arguments. Faced with this situation, he decided to take his case to court.
Right to total permanent disability
Both the Social Court No. 12 of Bilbao and later the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country ruled in favor of the worker. In this sense, for the TSJ, the pathologies suffered by the plaintiff, in their joint assessment, permanently affected her functional capacity and made it impossible for her to continue performing the physical tasks required of a cleaner.
To make this decision, the court took into account that the professional profile of a cleaner requires a significant physical load, especially biomechanics in the hands and dynamic standing. Thus, the court definitively recognizes his total permanent disability, which means that he will not be able to continue working in his usual job, granting him a pension corresponding to 75% of his monthly regulatory base of 1,248.02 euros.
In this ruling we must detail a key point in the defense of the worker against Social Security. The INSS tried to argue in its appeal that ailments such as knee pathology, fibromyalgia or his psychiatric condition were not, by themselves, disabling. Now, the magistrates explained that the state of health cannot be evaluated by isolating each disease. In this case, the medical expert demonstrated that the nodules on the hands prevent the grip of objects and cleaning utensils with force, and that the injuries to the foot and ankle are directly incompatible with a job that requires standing without suffering.
As it is a chronic and progressive situation from which no clinical improvement is expected, the TSJ concluded by saying that the combination of all these conditions nullifies her ability to cope with the moderate and physical efforts inherent to her profession as a cleaner, thus giving her the right to collect the total permanent disability pension, that is, up to 75% of her regulatory base, although it will drop to 55% if she decides to make the pension compatible with a job.