In its decision of May 16, 2017 (case reference: 7 Sa 38/17), the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Labor Court deemed an extraordinary termination without notice to be effective.
An employee had previously sent company documents to his private email address in preparation for a job with a new employer.
The employee usually worked from his home office, for which the employer had provided him with a business laptop.
In its decision, the LAG emphasized that employees are not permitted to obtain company documents without the permission of their employer.
Employee forwards e-mails to private address
In this case, the employee repeatedly breached his obligations arising from the employment relationship.
He sent numerous emails containing company documents to his private address and used them for non-business purposes.
In addition, he committed the breach of duty intentionally and caused a concrete threat to the business interests of his employer.
The documents contained, among other things, confidential and detailed customer data, price lists and project documents.
Serious breach of trust by the employee
The LAG Berlin-Brandenburg saw the offense as a serious breach of trust by the employee.
The employer could not reasonably be expected to continue his employment.
It was not necessary for his work to forward the emails to his private account.
This was because he had a work laptop at his disposal for working from home.
In addition, the employer’s laptops were apparently equipped with special security software designed to prevent data from being copied to external storage media outside the network.
Breach of trust justifies extraordinary termination without notice
According to § 241 Abs.
2 of the German Civil Code (BGB), employees are always obliged to respect the rights and interests of their employer as a secondary obligation.
The employee is therefore not permitted to take possession of company documents without the employer’s permission.
If the employee breaches this secondary obligation, there may be good cause within the meaning of Section 626 para.
1 of the German Civil Code (BGB), which may ultimately justify extraordinary termination without notice.
Danger to business interests – No warning required
A weighing of interests and the precise circumstances of the individual case also showed that the breach in the specific case was suitable to justify termination without notice.
The court was strict: in the opinion of the Berlin judges, a warning was not necessary in the case of such a far-reaching breach of trust.
This was because there was a concrete threat to the employer’s business interests.
When weighing up the plaintiff’s interest in the continuation of his employment relationship against the defendant’s interest in immediate termination, the employer’s interest prevailed due to the seriousness of the violation and the risk of repetition.
The fact that the employment relationship had already existed for over 10 years without any negative incidents did not sway the judges either.