The Superior Court of Justice of Galicia has recognized a woman’s absolute permanent disability pension for the serious psychiatric disorder she suffers from, including suicidal tendencies. Although the National Social Security Institute (INSS) denied him the pension, arguing that the ailments were not serious enough, this court determined that they prevented him from carrying out any type of work activity with minimal performance.
The woman was registered in both the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers (RETA) and the General Regime, being the owner of a supermarket (with three employees in her charge) and working as a companion/supervisor of children on school transportation.
After the permanent disability procedure was initiated by the INSS, in May 2023 they informed him that permanent disability had been denied, considering that his injuries did not reach a sufficient degree of reduction in his work capacity.
The clinical picture of the affected person, as set out in ruling 7676/2025, although it included physical ailments (fracture in the ninth costal arch and tendinopathy in both shoulders), stood out especially for the severity of her severe psychiatric pathology: a mixed disorder of anxiety and depression with personality factors Cluster B, for which she required psychiatric admissions, continuous monitoring and even had several self-lytic (suicide) attempts with assistance in the emergency room over the years. 2021 and 2024, showing little capacity for self-control.
The woman claims against the INSS through judicial means
Once the administrative route had been exhausted, the woman filed a claim before the Social Court No. 2 of Ferrol, which upheld her subsidiary request and granted her a total permanent disability for her usual profession.
Not satisfied with this sentence, he decided to appeal it, presenting a petition before the Superior Court of Justice of Galicia. In this, he requested that his disability be recognized in its absolute degree, defending that the extreme severity of his psychiatric condition prevented him from carrying out any work activity with a minimum of performance and demands.
The TSJ of Galicia recognizes his absolute permanent disability
The Superior Court of Justice of Galicia, in its ruling, begins by recalling that, according to jurisprudence, to recognize absolute permanent disability, the worker’s ailments must prevent him from exercising any profession in conditions of business profitability, without the ability to maintain continuity, dedication, subjection to minimum required schedules and efficiency.
Extrapolating this to the case, they highlighted the woman’s psychopathological condition, stating that her clinical history documented years of evolution with repeated self-harm attempts, referral to a Suicide Prevention Program and an absolute need for external control of the treatment due to her lack of self-control.
Based on this, the court determined that the affected person’s pathology constituted “a situation completely incompatible with the performance of any work activity, in a professional sense, under socially normalized conditions” that fit perfectly with the requirements of absolute permanent disability.
Consequently, the TSJ of Galicia upheld the woman’s appeal and declared her the beneficiary of absolute permanent disability, condemning the INSS to legally recognize this situation and pay her the financial benefits corresponding to this degree of disability. This ruling was not final and an appeal could be filed against it for the unification of doctrine before the Supreme Court.