A man walked away from his position after accidentally receiving 330 times his usual wage – and subsequently triumphed in a legal battle to retain the windfall.
The worker, employed at Consorcio Industrial de Alimentos de Chile, received 165 million Chilean pesos (£126,860) rather than his standard salary of 500,000 pesos (£385) following a company blunder in May 2022.
Upon discovering the error, the firm requested the office assistant return the funds – claiming he had consented to do so during an HR meeting.
Nevertheless, three days afterwards he handed in his notice without repaying the sum.
The multinational subsequently took legal action against the man, alleging theft in a court battle spanning three years, reports the Mirror.
Had he been convicted of theft, the man could have faced financial penalties and potentially up to 540 days behind bars.
However, in September judges in Santiago, Chile, threw out the case, determining the man had not committed theft but ruling it constituted an “unauthorised collection”.
As it was not classified as theft, the court was unable to pursue prosecution, according to Diario Financiero.
Despite the verdict, the company announced it would challenge the decision as it remains committed to recovering the money. “The Food Industrial Consortium will take all possible legal action, in particular an appeal for annulment, to review the conclusion,” it said in a statement.
This comes after reports emerged that a teacher in Germany took sick leave for 16 years whilst receiving her full £48,000 salary throughout the entire period without the school realising.
The biology and geography educator went off work in August 2009 due to a chronic illness and psychological difficulties.
She should have undergone a medical assessment following a three-month absence, which never took place, and her sick leave was systematically extended for nearly 20 years.
According to Bild, the teacher allegedly received between €5,051 (£4,369) and €6,174 (£5,341) monthly.
She managed to remain undetected until a management shake-up in 2024 when an internal review uncovered the “oversight” that had persisted for two decades.
Dorothee Feller, the education minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, said: “I have a lot of questions because I’ve never been confronted with a case like this before.”
An examination is now set to be conducted to determine the teacher’s health status.
