A worker's dismissal for not clocking in ruled unfair because it couldn't be proven he had been warned

A worker at a hospitality company in Catalonia stopped clocking in for seven days in a row. The company dismissed him for breach of good faith, the first-instance court sided with the employer and ruled the dismissal fair. Catalonia’s High Court of Justice has overturned it: unfair dismissal, with compensation of €42,671.66 or reinstatement. The time-tracking record proved without difficulty that the worker wasn’t clocking in; what the company failed to prove was that it had warned him before letting him go.

This company’s time-tracking record did its job; what it lacked was a record of the warning. An automated notification system fills exactly that gap, alerting the employee who isn’t clocking in and keeping the proof that it did. See how.

What happened

The worker, a first-class tradesman with seniority dating back to 2001, was returning from a long spell away from the job: a period of temporary disability that ran from January 2023 to April 2024, followed by a month of holiday. He returned to work in early May 2024 and, between the 6th and the 13th of that month, didn’t use the time-tracking system once. He only clocked out on the 14th.

The company handed him a disciplinary dismissal letter for failing to clock in “despite his obligation to do so and having been warned about it on repeated occasions”, framing the conduct under Article 54.2.d) of the Workers’ Statute —breach of contractual good faith— and as a very serious offence under the Catalan hospitality collective agreement.

Social Court No. 2 of Mataró ruled the dismissal fair. The worker appealed.

What the court accepted as proven

The company submitted the clock-in certification, and the court accepted it: from the 1st to the 13th of May there was no record of any clock-in, and on the 14th only one of the two expected. The worker tried to downgrade that document to a mere “background point about the evidence”, and the Chamber rejected the attempt. The record, combined with witness testimony, established beyond dispute that he didn’t clock in. The Fourth Legal Ground puts it in writing: the duty to clock in “is plain, given the provision of Article 34.9 of the Workers’ Statute”, and seven consecutive days of inaction “can only be voluntary and deliberate”.

The High Court itself classes the conduct as a serious breach, because it stops the company from knowing the worker’s schedule and punctuality and because it exposes the company to its own penalties on time-tracking matters.

Why the court downgraded it to unfair

The letter mentioned warnings “on repeated occasions”, and both witnesses testified that the worker had been told of his duty to clock in. But the first-instance judge didn’t record those warnings as a proven fact. They stayed in the reasoning, as witness testimony, without making it into the statement of facts. On appeal, what isn’t in the proven facts can’t be taken as established: in the Chamber’s words, that prior warning “cannot be assumed”.

Applying the gradualist doctrine —the one that demands proportionality between the offence and the penalty— the High Court concludes in its Sixth Legal Ground:

“to constitute a clear breach of good faith it would be essential that the company had, beforehand, at least warned him of this obligation; and, without these specific warnings being declared proven, it is disproportionate to find the very serious offence and the penalty of dismissal.”

The gradualist doctrine doesn’t dispute that failing to clock in is punishable; it disputes that the harshest penalty can stand without proof of the warning that precedes it. That warning was probably given verbally, but it left no documentary trace, and without a trace the Chamber treated it as non-existent.

The other front: the prior sick leave

The worker also argued the dismissal was null and void as discriminatory, relying on his long previous temporary disability and on Law 15/2022. The Chamber rejects this: precisely because the failure to clock in over seven days was voluntary and deliberate, the dismissal rested on “a serious, explanatory cause”, which cancels out any sign of retaliation over the sick leave. That’s why the appeal succeeds through unfairness rather than nullity, which would have forced reinstatement no matter what.

The outcome

• Unfair dismissal. The company must reinstate the worker or pay him €42,671.66.
• Wage claim upheld: €739.98 gross for the days worked in May.
• Nullity dismissed: no discrimination found over the prior temporary disability.

The ruling is not final: an appeal to unify case-law before the Supreme Court is still possible.

What a company takes away from this

The duty to clock in falls on the worker too, and ignoring it for seven days in a row is a serious breach that this ruling never disputes. The company, what’s more, got the hard evidentiary part right: its system left a dated, time-stamped record that the clock-in wasn’t happening, and that held up on appeal. What it didn’t prepare was the paperwork for the warning. The warnings stayed verbal and never reached the proven facts, so as far as the High Court was concerned, they might as well not have existed.

Turning a warning into something with a date is cheap —an email, a signed reprimand, a recorded notice— and it’s exactly what would have held this dismissal up. A dismissal for not clocking in rests, in practice, on two separate records:

1. The time-tracking record, which proves the absence of clock-ins with a date and time. A digital system also captures when an employee stops clocking in, not just when they do.
2. The record of the warning, which proves the company reacted before penalising. It’s the piece that here never reached the proven facts.

Having the first without the second is, more or less, what happened to this company: flawless proof of the breach and nothing to back up the warning.

That second piece is exactly what Cleverfy automates. When an employee doesn’t clock in, clock out or take a mandatory break, the system sends them a notification; and each employee can also set up reminders ahead of their clock-in time so they don’t forget. What’s decisive in a case like this is that every notification sent is logged: the company can prove when it warned and about what, without relying on a witness remembering it at trial.

That covers both fronts the High Court separated —the missing clock-in and the prior warning—, each with a date and a trail. Time tracking is up and running in under five minutes, with every clock-in method —web, mobile app, Chrome extension or kiosk mode— from €1.50/user per month, with no lock-in.

👉 Try Cleverfy free for 14 days — no credit card required.

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Source: Ruling STSJ CAT 3824/2026 (ECLI:ES:TSJCAT:2026:3824), Social Chamber of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia, section 1, 14 May 2026.

Legal note: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The names of the people and companies mentioned in the ruling have been anonymized in accordance with data protection regulations.