The imposition of penalties below the gravity of the misconduct

Recent social jurisprudence has definitively clarified that the imposition of a sanction lower than that envisaged for the seriousness of the offence committed does not, in itself, determine the nullity of the sanction. This has been established by the Supreme Court in its Judgment of 10 June 2025 (STS 559/2025), which resolves a controversy between different higher courts of justice on the consistency between the classification of the offence and the sanction finally imposed.

In the case analysed, the company correctly classified the facts as constituting a very serious offence, in accordance with the applicable collective agreement, but chose to impose a sanction corresponding to a serious offence, which was clearly more minor. In contrast to the criterion which considered the strict correspondence between the seriousness of the offence and the associated range of penalties to be mandatory, the Supreme Court concludes that the labour law does not prevent the employer from imposing a less severe penalty, provided that the penalty applied is expressly provided for in the catalogue of penalties in the collective agreement and that there is no fraud or abuse of rights.

The High Court bases this conclusion on article 58 of the Workers' Statute and on the so-called gradualist theory, which allows the disciplinary response to be modulated according to the specific circumstances of the case. The key lies in the fact that the employer may not impose more severe sanctions than those foreseen for the offence, but may legitimately opt for a lower sanction, even corresponding to a lesser level of severity, given that the employer himself could, in the end, not sanction the conduct. This option does not infringe either the principle of criminalisation or the principle of legality of penalties, since the sanction imposed remains criminalised and is more favourable to the employee.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court clarifies that this reduction in the penalty does not alter the legal classification of the offence, nor does it affect the limitation periods, nor does it undermine the employee's rights of defence, since these effects are linked to the seriousness of the offence and not to the specific intensity of the penalty chosen. Consequently, sanctioning "downwards" is legally valid, as long as the legal and conventional margins are respected and sanctions are not created that do not exist in the applicable system.

In short, the consolidated doctrine establishes that breaking the infraction-sanction correspondence in favour of the worker does not invalidate the sanction, but rather constitutes a legitimate, proportional and moderate exercise of the company's disciplinary power.

Article written by ECIJA Madrid Labour Law Department.