Chacón Navas v Eurest Colectividades SA
Chacón Navas v Eurest Colectividades SA (2006) C-13/05 is an EU labour law case that sets forth a uniform definition of disability in the European Union.The domestic Spanish labour courts agreed with Ms Navas' employers that illness did not amount to 'disability', which was the subject of the EU directive and that Spanish law allowed Eurest to fire Navas based on their cost benefit analysis (i.e. financial compensation versus continuing to employ her).The ECJ started with Article 136 TEC, which states that the Community exists with "a view to lasting high employment and the combating of exclusion."“...the concept of “disability” must be understood as referring to a limitation which results in particular from physical, mental or psychological impairments and which hinders the participation of the person concerned in professional life.”[1]In the absence of a definition in the Directive, the ECJ used the medical model of disability, which focuses on a person's impairment.The consequences of the case mean that the ECJ has protected employers in their actions against employees who lose capacity due to minor or temporary illnesses, in the case of Spanish law allowing them to make a cost-benefit analysis to pay compensation and rid themselves of an individual.