Why adding chairs did not spare Havan R$300,000 in damages

That distinction answers the central complaint from Havan owner Luciano Hang: the company installed chairs after notification, yet was penalized anyway. The court credited those changes and reduced the damages accordingly. But fixing the conditions after judicial intervention did not erase the earlier harm. Nor does the November judgment establish that chairs were still missing then.⁠1⁠2

Substitute labor judge Marcia Martins Pereira signed the first-instance judgment on November 9, 2026, in the First Labor Court of Rondonópolis, Mato Grosso, within the TRT-23 system. Alongside damages, she confirmed two immediately enforceable duties: accessible seats with backrests for employees doing standing work, and integration of ergonomic findings into the store’s formal risk-management program.⁠2

The practical problem was distance and access. During a July 2025 inspection, labor inspectors found no rest seats in the carpet, toys, general merchandise, bedding and bath, and fitting-room departments. Warehouse employees and store inspection staff also described working standing without rest seats. There were seats in electronics and the package department; this was not a finding that every worker lacked somewhere to sit.⁠2

Customer chairs were intended for customers and were not where employees worked. To use cafeteria or food-court seating, workers had to go downstairs and clock out. A brief rest between tasks therefore became part of their recorded workday break. The existence of chairs somewhere in the building did not establish access to rest where the job allowed a pause.⁠2

A former commercial and checkout operator supplied an earlier view of the same divide. Employed from October to December 2024, she could sit at checkout but had nowhere to sit in the commercial department, and described no warehouse seating. The judge expressly noted that witnesses did not report punishment for resting. The finding concerned unavailable seats, not a proven disciplinary policy against sitting down.⁠2

Havan disputed both the evidence and its meaning. It said seats had always existed, professional ergonomic assessments rated standing-posture risk as low because workers moved around and could use seats, and the law did not require a personal chair at every workstation. It also challenged messaging-app statements collected during the inquiry as one-sided, inadequately identified and inconsistent.⁠2

The inconsistency was real: of six responses, three described seats or freedom to sit during breaks, while three denied seats existed or could be used. The judge reasoned that different departments—and different meanings of “break”—could explain the split. More importantly, those messages were not the sole evidence. The court also relied on the physical inspection, testimony questioned in court and Havan’s own records.⁠2

Cristina Rosa Lopes, the Ministry of Labor and Employment inspector who conducted the inspection, testified under oath that some seats listed in the company’s ergonomic report were not actually present. The judge considered her testimony with the explicit qualification that she had also issued the inspection notices. The MPT, Brazil’s Labor Prosecutor’s Office, brought the case; Lopes belonged to the government inspection service, not the prosecution.⁠2

Havan also alleged restrictions on its defense. The judgment records that the company waived its witnesses, both sides said they had no further evidence, and the hearing closed without a recorded objection. The judge rejected a later generic protest. Havan received the full civil-inquiry file and an opportunity to respond, but identified no new material requiring a supplementary defense, so that deadline was not reopened.⁠2

The warnings predated the lawsuit. Havan’s own ergonomic analysis recommended rest seating by November 2024. The July 2025 inspection produced two violation notices, with administrative citations recorded that September. Havan declined a proposed out-of-court conduct-adjustment agreement on October 22, 2025. The judge accepted that refusal as lawful; its significance was that the company had already been formally alerted to the problem.⁠2

The MPT filed suit on April 12, 2026. After an emergency court order, Havan submitted chair photographs and attendance records for employee guidance on April 23. Prosecutors acknowledged compliance at that stage while reserving further checks. The judge credited the response within days, but found that these photographs demonstrated corrective action—not that seats had previously been available in the departments inspectors identified.⁠2

The second duty concerns what happens to an assessment after it is written. Havan’s ergonomic analysis identified standing posture as a risk, but the risk inventory in its PGR, or risk-management program, omitted it for April 2024 through March 2026. That program still carried a pending instruction to commission an ergonomic assessment and hire a specialist. A new PGR effective April 22, 2026, finally included the standing-posture risk. The continuing order requires that integration in future revisions too.⁠2

The court clarified that Havan need not provide an individual chair at every standing workstation. Employees may continue doing standing tasks while having accessible backed seats for pauses, including gaps between serving customers. Some company ergonomic records said there was no official pause; limiting seating to formally designated breaks would therefore hollow out the protection. Brazil’s labor code and ergonomics rules allow preventive enforcement without waiting for a worker to develop a proven occupational illness.⁠2

The judge accepted Havan’s general argument that not every labor-law breach automatically warrants collective damages. She found this one serious because it deprived a group across several departments of a basic health protection over a sustained period despite warnings. Company size and deterrence also mattered: inspection evidence recorded 126 workers at the store and more than 21,000 company-wide. Those were figures from that evidence, not a current headcount or a finding that all 126 were affected.⁠2

The limits mattered too. The court confined the proven violation to the inspected Rondonópolis store; prosecutors had not proved nationwide repetition. No concrete illness caused by the conduct was demonstrated, and prompt compliance favored Havan. Those considerations helped bring the award below the R$500,000 prosecutors sought. The judgment also assessed R$6,000 in court costs.⁠2

In an Instagram statement reported by Metrópoles on November 13, Hang called the outcome “persecution.” He said Havan had put in some chairs after notification but was penalized anyway, argued that excessive bureaucracy and legal uncertainty discourage investment, and expressed hope for reversal in higher courts. That is his characterization of the case. The judgment’s answer is that later compliance counted in Havan’s favor without extinguishing responsibility for what came before.⁠1⁠2

The R$300,000 is collective compensation, not an individual payout promised to employees. It is designated for public funds or eligible public-interest projects and institutions selected by the MPT with court approval. The separate R$50,000 enforcement penalty applies to each breached workplace obligation whenever noncompliance is established; it does not accrue daily, and there is no verified finding that one has already accrued.⁠2

Collection of the damages generally follows final judgment. The prevention duties do not wait for that point. For this store, the operative distinction is straightforward: work may require standing, but when it permits a pause, employees must have an accessible place to sit.⁠2