Medical leave and dismissal for cause: when the employee's conduct breaks trust

An employee on medical leave has the provision of services suspended, but the employment contract does not disappear during that period. A recent ruling helps define the boundaries of that space, and shows what actually decides this type of case when it reaches the courts.

The case

An employee was involved in a motorcycle accident and fractured his ankle. The medical prescription called for ninety days of rest, with orthopedic follow-up, surgery and physiotherapy.

Six days after the accident, he appeared in records of an Oktoberfest, in festive attire, dancing and raising his crutches. Days later, in recorded conversations, he stated that he was in pain. The company applied a dismissal for cause.

The 4th Labor Court of Blumenau, in Santa Catarina, upheld the dismissal for cause under article 482, item "b", of the Brazilian Labor Code (CLT), which addresses misconduct. The ruling states that the conduct "breaks the duty of loyalty to the employer, authorizing termination of the contract for cause".

The employee's claims were rejected: severance amounts due upon dismissal without cause, compensation for the job-security period following a workplace accident, moral damages, and the penalties under articles 467 and 477 of the CLT.

This is a first-instance decision, subject to appeal.

What medical leave suspends, and what remains

During medical leave, what is suspended is the provision of services and, depending on the case, the payment of salary. The contractual relationship remains, and with it remain duties of conduct arising from objective good faith, including the mutual loyalty between the parties.

This is where the employee's duty to care for his own recovery fits in. It is not an obligation of result, nor an authorization for the company to police the private life of someone on leave. It means not engaging in conduct that is directly incompatible with the prescribed treatment, thereby frustrating the purpose of the leave.

Attending a party, in itself, does not justify dismissal for cause

This is the point that most often causes confusion in practice, and it is worth stating clearly: the mere presence of an employee on leave at a social event does not, on its own, constitute serious misconduct.

What weighed in this case was the combination of three elements: the objective incompatibility between the conduct and the treatment that had been prescribed, the employee's own contradiction, since days later he claimed to be in pain, and the existence of evidence of this in the case record.

Remove any one of those elements and the outcome tends to change. A dismissal based only on indignation over an outing, without comparing what was prescribed with what was done, rests on presumption. And presumption does not sustain the most severe penalty available under an employment contract.

The evidence question and its limits

The company learned of the facts through records of the festival and through recorded conversations. This tends to raise a legitimate question in the corporate environment: how far may an employer go to produce this type of evidence?

Some useful boundaries:

• Content that reaches the company without it having gone looking, or that is publicly accessible, tends to be admitted as evidence.
• Creating a fake profile, obtaining access through a third party, or systematically monitoring an employee's private life reverses the positions. What was the substantiation of a dismissal for cause becomes a discussion about privacy violation, with a risk of moral damages against the company.
• Lawfully obtained evidence, standing alone, is rarely enough. It must be compared against the medical document the company itself received.

The practical rule is simple: the employer does not need to watch, it needs to compare. The medical certificate or report submitted by the employee is the document that gives meaning to everything else.

Why post-accident job security was not recognized

An employee who suffers a workplace accident and receives the corresponding social security benefit is, as a rule, entitled to the job security provided for in article 118 of Law 8,213/1991. That protection, however, guards against dismissal without cause, not against dismissal for cause.

Once serious misconduct is established, the consequence is termination of the contract through the employee's fault, which removes the compensation corresponding to the job-security period. That is what occurred in this case, in which the claims relating to that compensation were rejected.

What the employer should do before dismissing

Faced with evidence of conduct incompatible with the leave, the path that supports the decision involves:

• Retrieving the medical document. Locate the certificate, report or prescription actually delivered to the company, and identify which restrictions were set.
• Comparing what was prescribed with what was done. Record in writing the extent to which the observed conduct is incompatible with those restrictions. Without this comparison, there is no demonstrable serious misconduct.
• Preserving evidence lawfully. Document how the information reached the company, avoiding any intrusive method.
• Hearing the employee before deciding. A recorded prior hearing is what separates a reasoned dismissal from a hasty reaction, and it frequently clarifies the picture.
• Observing immediacy and proportionality. The penalty must closely follow knowledge of the facts, and dismissal for cause is the last measure, not the first.

How the firm works on this

Analyzing dismissal-for-cause cases, structuring the evidence before termination, and defending companies in claims discussing serious misconduct and job security are part of the firm's corporate employment law practice. Each case, however, depends on its own circumstances, facts and documents.

Conclusion

The decision does not support the reading that an employee on leave cannot leave the house. What it signals is narrower and more useful to the employer: conduct directly incompatible with the prescribed treatment, when proven and contradicted by the employee himself, may break the trust that sustains the contract.

For the company, the practical lesson lies less in the outcome and more in the method. A dismissal for cause that holds up in court is one built on a medical document, an objective comparison and lawful evidence. One that arises from a screenshot received in a messaging group, without that work, is usually reversed, with the combined cost of severance amounts, any job-security compensation and moral damages.

Finally, it is worth recalling that the decision discussed here is a first-instance ruling and is still subject to appeal.

Reference basis for review

• CLT, article 482, item "b" (misconduct as grounds for dismissal for cause).
• CLT, articles 467 and 477 (penalties whose claims were rejected in the case).
• Law 8,213/1991, article 118 (job security for employees who suffer workplace accidents, which guards against dismissal without cause).
• Brazilian Civil Code, article 422 (objective good faith in the performance of contracts, the basis for ancillary duties of conduct).
• Ruling of the 4th Labor Court of Blumenau/SC, case 0000074-32.2026.5.12.0051, a first-instance decision subject to appeal.
• Brazilian Bar Association Rule (Provimento OAB) No. 205/2021, to maintain the informative nature of this content.

Content for informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice, an offer of services or a promise of results. Actual analysis depends on the facts, the documents and the context of each case.