Chile Man Paid 330 Times His Salary By Mistake, Quits Instantly, Then Wins Case To Keep It All

A Chilean man who was accidentally paid 300 times his monthly salary has won a legal battle allowing him to keep the funds, according to The Metro.

The employee, an office assistant at the food company Dan Consorcio Industrial de Alimentos de Chile, typically earned 386 pounds (Rs 46162) per month. However, in May 2022, due to a payroll error, he received 127,000 pouunds (Rs 1,51,88311 in his account, as per the news report.

Initially, the man reportedly agreed to return the money. But within three days, he submitted his resignation and stopped responding to his employer. The company then filed a legal complaint, accusing him of theft.

After a lengthy legal battle spanning three years, a judge in Santiago ruled that the incident did not amount to theft but instead classified it as an "unauthorised collection." As a result, the case could not proceed as a criminal prosecution.

Although the court cleared the man of criminal charges, the company has expressed its intent to continue efforts to recover the money through civil proceedings. 

In a statement to Diario Financiero, they said: "We will take all possible legal steps, particularly an application for annulment, to have the ruling reviewed."

This incident comes after another extraordinary salary blunder in Europe.  According to Vice News, for 16 years, a German teacher has stayed home on full salary, skipping work but not payday. Now, after finally being asked to prove she's sick, she's taken legal action against her employer.

The teacher, who has not been publicly named, worked at a vocational college in Wesel, North Rhine-Westphalia. Or at least she used to. Since 2009, she has remained on sick leave, collecting an estimated approximately $1.17 million while submitting monthly medical certificates that were never supported by an official medical evaluation.

That changed earlier this year, when a new school administrator ordered an audit. The inquiry revealed a serious procedural gap: while the teacher had continuously turned in documentation, no one had ever actually required her to undergo a formal medical exam.