Brazil, Regional Labor Court 2nd Region, 7 March 2022, No. 1001108-92.2020.5.02.0025
Case overview
Country
Case ID
Decision date
Deciding body (English)
Deciding body (Original)
Type of body
Type of Court (material scope)
Type of jurisdiction
Type of Court (territorial scope)
Instance
Area
Outcome of the decision
Link to the full text of the decision
General Summary
A citizen whose work consisted of the general cleaning of rooms, bathrooms, corridors, and elevators of a public hospital requested a declaration of risk due to COVID-19 infection and the consequent declaration of stability due to an occupational disease, as well as compensation for moral damages. For the Plaintiff, the hospital has strict liability for COVID-19 infection. For the Court, the simple fact of working in a public hospital does not prove the causal link to the contagion of COVID-19. Given this situation, it was impossible to characterize the contamination as an occupational accident, and neither was it possible to request accident stability or compensation for moral damages. Additionally, the Court affirmed that the elements of the judicial documents do not impose the necessary certainty that the professional contracted COVID-19 due to her work. In these terms, the Court denied the claim.
Facts of the case
A public hospital general services worker was forced to perform general cleaning in the rooms, bathrooms, corridors, and elevators of the hospital. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and given the health emergency, particularly in hospitals, the citizen filed an action against the public authority responsible for the hospital, requesting the declaration of stability due to accident and compensation for moral damages, since such activities generate direct risks of contagion. The worker filed an appeal.
Type of measure challenged
Measures, actions, remedies claimed
Individual / collective enforcement
Nature of the parties
Claimant(s)
Private individualDefendant(s)
Public
Type of procedure
Reasoning of the deciding body
First, the Court analyzed the concrete case. It pointed out that the worker was assigned to do general cleaning in rooms, bathrooms, corridors, and elevators on the premises of a hospital. In the appeal, she argued that the activities performed by herself already entailed risk factors and that the hospital had objective responsibility in the contagion of COVID-19. For the Court, the elements of the case file do not impose the necessary certainty that the professional contracted COVID-19 due to her work. In this sense there was no proven causal link. There is no talk of occupational accident due to the Plaintiff contracting COVID-19 in neither stability accident nor compensation for moral damages.
Conclusions of the deciding body
The Court concluded that the simple fact of working in a hospital does not prove a causal link to COVID-19 contamination. Therefore, it was not possible to characterize the contamination as a work accident, nor was it possible to request accident stability nor compensation for moral damages. However, the Court decided to revoke the order to pay attorney's fees based on the STF's jurisprudence, which, in the judgment of ADI 5.766/DF, declared the unconstitutionality of the article 791-A, paragraph 4, of the CLT. The understanding adopted by the Supreme Court was that the payment of attorney's fees for loss of suit by beneficiaries of free justice, even if in another proceeding they obtained sufficient credits to support the obligations arising from their loss of suit, is undue.
Fundamental Right(s) involved
- Right to health (inc. right to vaccination, right to access to reproductive health)
- Right to work
Fundamental Right(s) instruments (constitutional provisions, international conventions and treaties)
- Right to health, Art. 6, Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988
- Right to work, Art. 6, Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988
Rights and freedoms specifically identified as (possibly) conflicting with the right to health
Balancing techniques and principles (proportionality, reasonableness, others)
The Court did not apply any general principle nor weighting technique.
