The High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands has upheld the claim of a Mercadona manager in Butihondo, Fuerteventura, and has ordered the company to compensate her with 7,501 euros for violating her fundamental right to data protection.
Personal data exposed in a disciplinary file
The worker, Lina, filed the lawsuit after Mercadona included in the dismissal letter of her partner, Vicente, detailed information about her employment situation, her monthly salary broken down over a year, her reduced working hours due to maternity and the personal relationship she had with the dismissed employee. The document was notified in February 2025.
Vicente, who had stopped performing maintenance functions in August 2023, continued receiving the salary supplement due to a company error. Mercadona justified the dismissal alleging that the worker was aware that this amount was being paid to him unduly and that he had committed a clear breach of contractual good faith and abuse of trust.
The TSJC contradicts the ruling of first instance
Lina's lawsuit was initially dismissed by Social Court No. 4 of Arrecife in October 2025. However, the manager appealed to the TSJC, arguing that there was no legitimate interest, according to Article 6 of the General Data Protection Regulation, for the processing of her personal data in her partner's disciplinary file.
The TSJC has recognized that the use of Lina's personal data occurred in the context of a disciplinary proceeding that culminated in a dismissal and that Mercadona acted in the exercise of the disciplinary power contained in the Workers' Statute. However, the court contradicts the assessment of the court of first instance and upholds the claims of the plaintiff.
The court underlines the lack of justification
In its resolution, the court criticizes that the company's action does not pass the test of necessity, since the same objective could have been achieved without mentioning a specific person, it being sufficient to allude to another worker in an identical position or using anonymized data.
The TSJC considers that the sacrifice of a fundamental right is not justified to safeguard the disciplinary power of the company, which could be executed without the need to resort to the unconsented processing of personal data.
The ruling obliges Mercadona to compensate Lina for the violation of her fundamental right to data protection, a ruling that modifies the previous interpretation made by the court of first instance in Arrecife.