TRT-17 orders Vale to compensate technician after Brumadinho tragedy.

Conjur - The First Panel of the Regional Labor Court of the 17th Region (TRT-17) ordered Vale SA to pay compensation in the amount of R$ 250,000 to an electronics technician, due to the psychological and mental distress suffered after the collapse of the dam at the Córrego do Feijão Mine, in Brumadinho (MG), in January 2019.  

The company had already been ordered to pay R$ 150 in moral damages, in a ruling issued by the 12th Labor Court of Vitória, but appealed the decision. The plaintiff, in turn, also appealed the ruling, requesting an increase in the amount of compensation.  

According to the records, the employee worked for the mining company for almost 26 years, going through various positions and functions until reaching the position of electro-electronics technician II. On January 25, 2019, the day of the collapse of the B1 dam in Córrego do Feijão, Brumadinho, he was off duty; however, due to the event, he was summoned by his supervisor to activate the pump of another nearby dam, due to the high risk of this one also collapsing. 

As reported in the case file, in addition to all the risks he was exposed to, the employee had to experience the entire tragedy firsthand, being forced to walk through the mud and over the bodies of some of the victims. The technician recounts that he was overwhelmed, as he worked amidst all the chaos from 17:30 PM to 8:30 AM and even found his uncle's truck, who was dead at the scene, covered in mud.  

Following the tragedy, the worker developed depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and was placed on medical leave in October 2019, remaining in treatment until now. At his own request and on the advice of his doctor, the employee was transferred to Vila Velha, in Espírito Santo, to be closer to family and friends. 

Medical report
According to medical documents included in the case file and presented during the expert examination, it was found that the employee suffered from post-traumatic stress, anxiety disorder, mild to moderate depressive episodes, insomnia, night terrors, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, and schizophrenic-depressive disorder.

Despite there being no need for psychiatric hospitalization, the doctor who treated him prescribed several controlled medications, such as Zolpidem, Sertraline, Quetiapine, and Zargus. 

In its appeal, Vale SA argued that it has always complied with and enforced its obligations regarding workplace safety, adopting normative standards for dam construction, and that the causes of the dam breach are under investigation by the competent authorities.  

It also argues that the plaintiff was not working at the Córrego do Feijão mine at the time of the collapse of Dam B1, and therefore there is no causal link between the accident and the alleged moral damages.

The rapporteur for the case, Judge Cláudio Armando Couce de Menezes, stated that it is a matter of public record that the tragic dam accident in Brumadinho, which took the lives of 270 people, including employees, contractors, and local residents, resulted from the method adopted by the company for the construction of the dam: "upstream raising." This method is considered by many scholars to be the fastest and cheapest; however, it carries a higher risk of accidents, as confirmed by the tragedies that occurred in Mariana/MG in 2015 and in Brumadinho/MG in 2019. 

The judge states that "even though the plaintiff was not working at the exact moment of the accident and did not suffer any injury to his physical integrity, there is no doubt about the suffering he experienced, as he would have been a potential victim if he had been present when the tragedy occurred." 

It also concludes that the worker's depressive and distressed state, with evident post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychiatric alterations, were caused by traumas suffered as a result of the accident at the workplace. 

It was also proven that the company issued a CAT (Work Accident Report), in which it communicates the diagnosis of a nervous system disease resulting from work in Brumadinho. 

"Therefore, the causal link between the illness affecting the claimant and the activity carried out by the defendant [...], and the contributing cause for the worsening of the illness even after the Brumadinho accident, is fully proven," states the rapporteur. With information from the press office of TRT-17. 

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