State Labor Court Rhineland-Palatinate, January 13th, 2011
File number: 10 Sa 456/10
An employee who, in the performance of his contractual duties, promises to receive or receives benefits intended or likely to influence his business conduct in favor of third parties and to the detriment of his employer, violates the so-called kickback prohibition and is adversely concerned with the interests of his employer, who has a valid basis for such an employee’s immediate termination. In this case, an auditor had demanded hush money.
State Labor Court Rhineland-Palatinate, January 16th, 2009
File number: 9 Sa 572/08
Is an employee to accept an expensive present from a service provider of his employer, he may be terminated without previous notice. The granted advantage resulting from the present does not have to be targeted at influencing him in his professional relationship with the third party; it just needs to be capable of doing so. This is independent from the outcome.
Federal Labor Court, July 3rd, 2003
File number: 2 AZR 235/02
Precedence: State Labor Court Hesse, November 27th, 2001 - File Number: 15 Sa 411/01
The plaintiff had been employed since 1997 as a social worker in one of the social facilities run by the defendant. In March 2000 he filed an anonymous suit, through his lawyer, against the facility director, his immediate superior, on the suspicion of embezzlement by the director. The proceedings were dropped in accordance with Article 170 paragraph 2, StPO. After learning of the charge, the defendant dismissed the plaintiff’s without notices, citing breech of trust caused by the plaintiff’s unauthorized charges, exacerbated by the fact that the plaintiff had not first sought an explanation internally, with the defendant’s claiming that the charges where filed for the sole purpose of causing his director harm.
The Labor Court declared the irregular dismissal as ineffective, but the regular dismissal as effective. The plaintiff appealed the decision and the State Labor Court later declared the regular dismissal as ineffective as well.
The defendant’s appeal met with success in the Second Panel of the State Labor Court. By filing a suit against an employer or one of his/her representatives, there may be a breech of responsibility on the part of the employee, which – based on this case - may indeed warrant a regular dismissal. This may come into consideration particularly when the case filed by an employee knowingly contains untrue or thoughtless information or when the intent is harm or revenge. Depending on the specific circumstances, this can also be the case when an internal clarification was not sought. Such an attempt at clarification may be expected of the employee particularly when it is misconduct by other employees directed at the employer and it can be expected that, when viewed objectively, the employer would investigate such complaints once informed of them. In such a case the possible precedence of a company-internal clarification does not stand in conflict with the right to file suit covered in the (German) Bill of Rights.
Because the precedent did consider either the plaintiff’s motive nor the question of whether or not the plaintiff could have been expected (to provide evidence for the claimed incident) to inform to the superior next of the incident, the Panel dismissed the case back to the State Labor Court for further investigation and judgment.
State Labor Court Rhineland-Palatinate, October 30th, 2002
File number: 9 Sa 857/02
Dismissal: Filing a suit against an employer by an employee can be a ground for dismissal. This is based on a judgment passed by the State Labor Court (LAG) Rheinland-Pfalz in Mainz. As a rule, the employee must have to have vainly attempted to dissuade the employer from his/her unlawful conduct, the judges maintained. The court dismissed a complaint filed by a truck driver regarding unlawful dismissal. The driver discredited his employer with the inspectorate, maintaining that the defendant had required the plaintiff, as well as the other drivers, that the exceeded the permitted hours spent driving. The plaintiff was not able to provide sufficient proof for this claim and he was dismissed by his employer, which the LAG judged as justified, maintaining that the further employment of the man was not to be expected from the defendant.
State Labor Court Northrhine-Westfalia, January 17th, 2002
File number: 11 Sa 1422/01
Filing suit against an employer’s manager is an employee’s legitimate right and can therefore justify an irregular dismissal in rare cases.
Federal Constitutional Court, July 2nd, 2001
File number: 1 BvR 2049/00
Testifying against an employer in court or in a legal investigation is not automatically a ground for dismissal. The Federal Constitutional Court declared that no one should be disadvantaged for fulfilling his civil obligations by providing relevant information on an employer’s behaviour in an investigation. An employee provided the public prosecutor’s office with documents that he had personally collected as a member of the work council. The authorities had been investigating irregularities in the company since 1996. The State Labor Court had previously upheld the employer’s right to dismiss the employee. The Federal Constitutional Court repealed the decision and sent it back to the State Labor Court for a new verdict.