The Supreme Court confirms that José María Íñigo did not die from exposure to asbestos

The Supreme Court has confirmed the ruling that declared that the asbestos present on TVE sets was not the cause of the death of journalist José María Íñigo, by rejecting the appeal filed by the presenter's widow to unify doctrine in this type of case.

José María Íñigo died in 2018 due to a malignant pleural mesothelioma that he was diagnosed with in 2016, and before he died, he began a process to have it recognized that he suffered from an occupational disease.

His family continued the process and filed a lawsuit against the Spanish Radio Television Corporation, the Muprespa Mutual Fraternity, the National Social Security Institute and the Spanish Broadcasting Society, SA

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A court revokes the sentence that attributed the death of José María Íñigo to asbestos from TVE

Now the Social Chamber of the Supreme Court opposes the appeal filed by Íñigo's widow, as requested by the Prosecutor's Office, and thus confirms the judgment of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) of November 2021, that revoked the previous sentence of the Social Court number 2 of Madrid that gave the reason to the presenter's family.

There is no recourse anymore.

This court had recognized that the widow's pension of José María Íñigo's wife derived from occupational disease due to the presenter's exposure to asbestos during his employment relationship with RTVE.

But the TSJM upheld one of the appeals filed by Social Security and by RTVE against that ruling and concluded that, as determined by the Labor Inspectorate, "the causal link between the provision of services by the deceased has not been proven. for RTVE and contracted disease”.

Now the Supreme confirms the arguments put forward by the TSJM and does not admit the appeal for the unification of doctrine, rejecting a possible error in the assessment of the evidence and emphasizing that "what the appellant raises is her disagreement with the assessment of the evidence conducted by the court of appeal” and that what the court of first instance said be upheld.

The Chamber reiterates that in this type of appeal "it is not possible to review the proven facts of the appealed judgment or address issues related to the evaluation of the evidence."

The activity carried out by the deceased is not specified in the table that approves occupational diseases

Judgment of the Social Chamber of the Supreme

The magistrates of the Supreme also reject that this case can be compared with the one exposed by the widow in the appeal: that of a worker in a fertilizer factory who achieved absolute permanent disability due to occupational disease, since this activity is included in the picture of occupational diseases as the cause of pleural mesothelioma due to exposure to inhalation of asbestos dust.

“On the contrary, in the present case, the activity carried out by the deceased is not specified in the table that approves occupational diseases, nor is it related to any of the activities that Royal Decree 1299/2006 considers to be the cause of mesothelioma of pleura, nor those that Royal Decree 396/2006 considers to be at risk due to asbestos”, adds the Chamber.

For this reason, it concludes that "the legal presumption of occupational disease cannot be applied and consequently the plaintiff had to prove the existence of a causal link between the death and the performance of the activity, which has not occurred either."

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