Termination due to reading and disclosure of data
If an employee, who has access to her employer's PC and email account in the course of her accounting duties, reads an email addressed to her superior without authorisation and makes a copy of the attachment of an obviously private email, which she passes on to a third person, this justifies termination without notice.
This was decided by the Cologne Regional Labour Court on 02.11.2021 and the contrary decision of the Aachen Labour Court of 22.04.2021 -8 Ca 3432/20- was overturned.
The plaintiff has been employed by the employer, a Protestant church congregation, as an administrative employee for 23 years. As far as necessary for her accounting tasks, she had access to the pastor's service computer. In this work computer, the plaintiff took note of an email which informed the pastor of a preliminary investigation against him on suspicion of sexual assault of a woman living in the church asylum of the congregation. In the email account, she found a chat history between the pastor and the woman concerned as an attachment to a private email, which she saved on a USB stick and anonymously forwarded to a volunteer of the congregation a week later. The plaintiff stated that she had wanted to protect the woman living in church asylum and to secure evidence. After the incidents became known, the parish terminated the employment relationship without notice.
In the first instance, the plaintiff was successful in her action for protection against dismissal before the Aachen Labour Court. Although the court found that her conduct constituted an important reason for termination without notice, it considered this to be disproportionate due to the long and previously unencumbered employment relationship and the lack of a risk of repetition.
The church congregation's appeal against this decision was successful. The Cologne Regional Labour Court considered the relationship of trust necessary for the plaintiff's duties to be irretrievably destroyed. In the court's view, the unauthorised access to and disclosure of other people's data was a serious breach of the duty of consideration under the employment contract, also because of the associated violation of personal rights. This was also not justified by the motives put forward by the plaintiff to protect the woman living in the church asylum and to secure evidence. This was because the plaintiff had not been able to achieve any of the stated goals with her course of action. In view of the seriousness of the breach of duty, the congregation's interest in a solution clearly outweighed the plaintiff's interest in employment. Even the first-time acceptance of this breach of duty was unreasonable for the municipality according to objective standards and thus obviously excluded - also recognisable for the plaintiff.
The Regional Labour Court did not allow the appeal.
Source: Press release of the Regional Labour Court Cologne No. 1/2022 of 03.01.2022
- Legal Tech Act
- Invalidity of the termination of a tenancy agreement
- Influencer means advertising ?
- Employee must prove illness
- Revocation of a car loan agreement
- Liability of a subsidiary for infringement of competition law?
- Time limitation of an employment
- Price increases for new car
- Termination due to reading and disclosure of data
- Termination because of threats against a supervisor
- Proof of e-mail receipt.
- Termination of Leasing Contract
- EU sanctions targeting Russian citizens.
- Transparency register for all companies
- Insolvency law: indebtedness pursuant to section 19 (2) sentence 1 InsO
- The EU's Russia sanctions
- Payment for licence plate advertising is remuneration
- Employees can be transferred abroad permanently
- Implementation of electronic time recording
- Unemployment benefit after dismissal?
- Equal pay
- Protection against dismissal for employees
- Seizure of a private car by customs
- Interest on tax demands and refunds at 6% p.a. unconstitutional
- Data owned by employer
- Weakening of tenants' rights
- Right of withdrawal for brokerage contracts
- BFH, ruling of 23 March 2016, IV R 9/14: Investment deduction amount
- Cartel damage
- Right abuse
- Setting a deadline
- Protection of third parties
- Internet sales platform
- Bonus payments
- Formal requirements in general terms and conditions
- Termination of a management employment
- No cosmetic repairs at the apartment despite "renovation agreement"
- Income tax return due to loan default
- ECJ ruling on copyright infrigements on Youtube
- Gift invalid without notarial certification
- Minimum subsistence Germany 2019-2020
- revocability of employment termination agreements
- Cover under legal expenses insurance
- Termination without notice
- Labour law: leave
- Immigration of qualified staff
- Unpaid leave
- Tax law: liability of a foreign company in germany
- Custom law ruling
- Labour law: compensation adjustment for lawyer fees
- Termination without notice
- Tenancy law
- Immediate notice of dismissal
- Damages in case of violation of a jurisdiction agreement
- Corona quarantine: legal aspects
- No termination without notice
- Labour law decisions around Corona
- Dismissal due to Covid 19 quarantine invalid