Column “My judgment”: Is it legal to be dismissed after a good interim report?

The employer is bound by the statements in an interim report.

The Hamm Regional Labor Court recently decided how far this binding effect can go.

What happened?

The employee of a production company receives an interim certificate with the following wording: "

." The following day, the production company terminates the employment relationship without notice, alternatively with the deadline.

In the dismissal protection process, he argues the reason for the dismissal: The employee aggressively demanded the interim report the day before the dismissal, coerced, threatened and insulted the managing director in front of the workforce.

The interim report was only given to calm things down.

Other options for reassurance

The court does not accept this argument.

Because the production company behaves contradictory if, on the one hand, it gives a positive assessment of the employee's behavior in the interim report, and on the other hand, it terminates the employment relationship on the following day precisely because of complaints about the employee's behavior.

Manufacturing could have taken other options to calm the situation.

Due to the contradictory behavior, the termination is ineffective.

This decision of the court is not convincing.

An interim reference that an employee enforces through threats and coercion cannot result in a termination of the employment relationship due to this threat and coercion being contradictory and ineffective.