According to the established case law of the Greek courts, an accident at work is considered to be any violent event that caused death or disability, which hinders work and which occurred during the performance of work or because of it, and which is directly or indirectly related to it in terms of cause and effect; in other words, in this specific case, there is a causal link between the work and the accident.
This causal link between work and accident is not limited to accidents that occur during and at the place of work, but also covers accidents that occur while traveling to or from work.
A noteworthy decision, which clarified to a large extent the conditions for classifying a traffic accident as a work-related accident, was Decision 8452/2020 of the Administrative Court of First Instance of Athens. This decision established for the first time the obligation of employers to submit to the Labor Inspectorate information such as the place of work of employees and their working hours, which must be accurate and thorough. At the same time, the Court reached its decision by adopting a formal and a substantive criterion: on the one hand, the employee must be insured with the Social Security Institution (IKA), and on the other hand, the accident must occur exclusively in the course of performing work duties, while the insured employee is traveling to or from their place of work, provided that there is a causal link between the work and the accident in the specific case.
Of course, the above conditions are not legally binding and do not preclude the application of the general provisions of civil law. For example, if the victim, while driving in the course of his work, was involved in a traffic accident through his own fault, due to alcohol consumption, for example, then the accident cannot be classified as a work-related accident. The same applies in cases where the employee was indeed traveling to his workplace but was driving at excessive speed due to a delay that was not caused by the actions or orders of his employer.
The employer’s liability also covers cases of gross negligence, where the accident was caused by failure to comply with the provisions of applicable laws on safety conditions. The victim retains his right to financial compensation for moral damage, or in the event of death, the victim’s family retains the right to financial compensation for mental anguish against the employer, when the accident is due to the employer’s fault.
