During a pay dispute, an employee in Gerona, Spain, called his boss a “son of a bitch.” He then called the manager “crazy” as he stormed out of the office.

Think someone in your company could do that without getting fired? This manager didn’t think so either.

But a judge thought differently. The employee sued for wrongful termination (like many European countries, Spain doesn’t have “at-will” employment) and won.

Said the judge: “The social degradation of language has caused the expressions used by the plaintiff to be commonly used in many situations, especially arguments,” the Telegraph reports. Therefore, it wasn’t a serious enough offense to warrant termination.

The court ordered the company reinstate the employee or pay him the equivalent of $9,500.

Many employers follow a policy of paying out unused vacation time to employees who voluntarily resign — but not when employees are fired.

But that practice has come under scrutiny in some areas. Take this recent case from Massachusetts:

Francis Tessicini was fired from his job at Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS). Before the termination, he’d only used one day of his allotted paid vacation — but, according to company policy, he wasn’t owed payment (which would’ve amounted to about $1,800).

He sued, claiming the policy was against the law. The case made it to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which agreed EDS’s policy violated the state’s Wage Law.

Under the law, vacation is considered part of an employee’s wages, the court ruled, so it was owed to Tessicini along with his regular salary for work he’d completed.

That’s not the law of the land everywhere, though:

In 2007, the Minnesota Supreme Court took the opposite stance. Last year, Maryland passed a law clarifying that employers’ individual policies dictate whether vacation time will be paid out after termination.

The rules on payment of vacation time vary from state to state. Make sure you check your state’s laws and write your policy accordingly.

Cite: Electronic Data Systems Corp. v. Attorney General