Supreme Court: no time records, remote-work accident is work-related

Legal notice: This article is informational and does not constitute legal advice. It summarises the doctrine set by Supreme Court ruling (Social Chamber, en banc) no. 444/2026, of 23 April, available on CENDOJ under ECLI ES:TS:2026:1950.

The case

A senior administrative technician, employed since 2010 at Accenture Outsourcing Services, worked remotely on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from her home in Madrid. Her schedule was set with flexible hours (9:00 to 19:00) and a lunch break not predetermined by the employer.

On 21 February 2022 she was found dead at home by her son at 20:00. The autopsy placed the time of death at around 15:00 and confirmed the cause was a cardiac event. The worker had no significant prior cardiac lesions. The employer did not produce the detailed time-tracking record which should have logged start time, end time and break, even though it is one of the obligations expressly derived from the time-tracking duty in art. 34.9 ET (Workers’ Statute) and art. 14 of Law 10/2021 on remote work.

The widower claimed the death-and-survivor benefit from the INSS (Social Security) as a work-related contingency. The case went through three rulings:

Court	Date	Ruling
Social Court no. 33 of Madrid	Ruling 53/2023, 27 Feb 2023	Declares it a work accident. Orders mutual insurer FREMAP to pay.
High Court of Madrid (TSJ, 4th sec.)	Ruling 240/2024, 27 Mar 2024 (appeal 529/2023)	Overturns. Treats it as a non-occupational contingency (Spanish contingencia común) due to doubt about working time.
Supreme Court, Social Chamber en banc	Ruling 444/2026, 23 Apr 2026 (rcud 2505/2024)	Quashes and annuls the TSJ Madrid ruling. Fully upholds the first-instance ruling: work accident.

What the Supreme Court establishes

The ruling, handed down en banc and with doctrine applicable to all similar cases, settles a question that had been generating uncertainty in the courts for months: how to apply the work-accident presumption of art. 156.3 LGSS (General Social Security Act) when the accident occurs at the home of a remote worker on flexible hours.

The European duty underpinning all this is the CJEU ruling in CCOO v Deutsche Bank (C-55/18, 14 May 2019), which requires Spain to keep an “objective, reliable and accessible” record of working time. That record is now the missing piece in the case at hand.

The TSJ Madrid had built reasonable doubt out of the time of death (15:00), the empty stomach reflected in the autopsy, and the agreed schedule flexibility, concluding that it could not be affirmed that the worker was within working time when the heart attack occurred.

The Supreme Court recalls that the presumption of art. 156.3 LGSS “dispensa de la prueba del hecho presunto a la parte a la que este hecho favorezca” (exempts from proving the presumed fact the party whom that fact benefits) (art. 385 LEC, Civil Procedure Act), so in remote work rebutting it requires evidence to the contrary, not a value judgement of doubt. On this footing the time record comes into play:

“No se aportó el registro horario detallado, que debía incluir hora de inicio, fin de jornada y duración del descanso.” (The detailed time record was not provided, which should have included start time, end of working day and break duration.)

The Chamber reasons that the duty in art. 34.9 ET, expressly reinforced for remote work by art. 14 LTD (Remote Work Act), is there precisely to evidence the “working time” element in these cases. If the employer fails to comply, the evidentiary vacuum that follows cannot operate against the work-accident presumption.

The core doctrine

The en banc panel sets a nuanced rule depending on the type of remote work:

1. Online remote work (with a direct connection to the company’s central system). The burden of proving working time and place of work falls on the employer, because it has electronic or IT tools to track working hours precisely.
2. Offline remote work (without a connection, or off the internet) with an undetermined schedule. The possibility of employer monitoring is disabled and, in principle, the burden of proving that the accident occurred during working time falls on the worker.
3. Intermediate zone: when the schedule is determined but flexible, as here, no rigid rule applies. The en banc panel weighs objective elements (time of death, working conditions, absence of the monitoring document the employer had promised to provide, medical data) and, if they favour the worker, the presumption of art. 156.3 LGSS (General Social Security Act) applies and the employer must rebut it with evidence to the contrary.

On top of that structure comes the time record: when the employer fails to provide the record under art. 34.9 ET (Workers’ Statute), that gap does not become neutral doubt but evidentiary vacuum that cannot operate against the presumption of work-relatedness.

Being an en banc ruling has two practical effects. First, it closes the divergence among regional high courts (TSJ) about how to apply the 156.3 presumption to homes without rigid schedules. Second, it opens the door for subsequent appeal rulings to align without further litigation up to doctrinal unification.

Implications for employers with remote work

This doctrine reaches a universe of situations far beyond death from cardiovascular causes:

• Temporary disabilities arising during the working day under remote work.
• Benefit surcharges for lack of safety measures when it is disputed whether the incident happened during working time.
• Widow/widower and orphan benefits stemming from accidents, as in this case.
• Damages compensation tied to classification as a work-related contingency.

On all those fronts, the time record becomes the main evidentiary tool the employer has to defend a position other than the presumption. Without records, the employer may try to reconstruct working time with other means — VPN logs, internal system access, witness testimony from colleagues, call and meeting logs — but it takes on the burden and cost of an exercise the legislature had already standardised.

The link is direct with the doctrine the Supreme Court itself set in its STS 372/2026, of 15 April, on the burden of proof for overtime: non-compliance with art. 34.9 ET has concrete evidentiary consequences in every area where working time appears as a disputed fact. For employers with remote or hybrid work models, and pending the Royal Decree that hardens digital time tracking, reading both rulings together draws the new compliance line.

What a reliable remote-work time record requires

Art. 14 LTD (Remote Work Act) expressly requires, for remote work:

• A faithful reflection of time spent on the activity, without prejudice to schedule flexibility.
• Inclusion, among other data, of the start and end of the working day.
• Subject to the same general regime of the record established by the employer under art. 34.9 ET (Workers’ Statute).

Added to that, via art. 34.9 ET and the applicable collective bargaining agreement, is the detail of the break, which in the case at hand the employer had formally committed to through the “activity tracking document” but never actually provided to the worker.

The ruling takes for granted that this record cannot be a self-editable Excel file, a monthly after-the-fact declaration, or a system without traceability. If it is, courts are already discarding its evidentiary value in cases like the time record with cross-outs that does not stand as evidence, and the logic carries over to any doubtful remote-work scenario. The operational question for any employer with remote work is not whether it has “some” record, but whether the one it has would hold up under expert review and cross-checking with external logs.

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Source: Supreme Court ruling (Social Chamber, en banc) no. 444/2026, of 23 April (rcud 2505/2024), ECLI ES:TS:2026:1950, available at CENDOJ.