A worker, a cleaner by profession and with a clinical condition consisting of chronic ischemia in both legs, carotid stenosis, anxiety and bladder cancer, has not been able to get the Justice to recognize her absolute permanent disability after the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country concluded that her ailments do not prevent her from carrying out “any profession or trade.” The Chamber explains that, although his pathologies do justify total permanent incapacity for his usual employment, it has not been proven that there is a functional limitation of such intensity as to close access to any job.
According to the ruling of the TSJ (available at this link of the Judiciary), the worker had already been recognized by Social Security as having a total permanent disability derived from a common illness for her usual profession as a cleaner, but she went to court to request a higher degree, that of absolute permanent disability. In the first instance, the Social Court dismissed the claim, and then the affected party appealed to insist that her state of health prevented her from carrying out any work activity.
According to the facts, the woman suffered from femoro-popliteal disease with chronic IIB ischemia in both lower limbs, in addition to right and left carotid stenosis, adjustment disorder with anxiety and bladder cancer. In the summary medical report of March 2024, it was stated that she reported claudication at 20 steps, pain even while lying in bed, and limitation in tasks with moderate or sustained biomechanical demands on the lower extremities.
In the appeal, the plaintiff’s defense argued that the lower court ruling had incorrectly assessed her ailments and that the sum of her pathologies prevented her from working normally. The court explains that absolute permanent disability is what disqualifies you from working in almost any type of profession and adds that the work must be able to be done with “normal effort”, with continuity, efficiency and a real possibility of traveling to the workplace.
The Chamber also reviews its own doctrine on chronic ischemia grade II b on the La Fontaine scale. In these cases, when the claudication is severe and is well established, the usual criterion has been to recognize absolute disability, but in this procedure the problem was determining whether this functional impairment continued to have sufficient intensity to prevent any employment. That is to say, and to understand it, permanent disability is not determined by the type of illness but by how it affects regular work or any type of work.
The TSJ appreciates daily physical activity and absence of data that nullifies wandering
To resolve the case, the court not only took into account the medical report from 2024, but also other progress reports from 2025. They stated that the worker had undergone a cystoscopy without findings, with a negative result for malignant cells, that she had an ejection fraction of 50% and that she carried out daily physical activity, walking and pedaling at home.
With these data, the TSJ ends by saying that “there is no reliably proven reluctance to walk below 150 meters,” nor the impossibility of using public or private means of transportation. To this he adds that the cardiac pathology was asymptomatic, that the bladder cancer did not show recurrence and that the adaptive disorder with anxiety did not compromise the intellective and volitional capacity of the worker.
For all these reasons, the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country dismisses the appeal and confirms the previous ruling. The resolution concludes that the plaintiff “is not affected by the degree of absolute permanent disability,” so she only maintains the total permanent disability that she already had recognized for her usual profession as a cleaner. What does it mean and how does it affect the cleaner? Well, it will charge 55% of its regulatory base, set at 1,306.51 euros, instead of charging 100%, although Social Security may review this level in the future.