Summary dismissal unjustified

Dismissal with immediate effect can be justified.

As Employer however, you have to be very careful and make sure that you follow all the rules correctly – on top of that, time is of the essence in summary dismissals.

The Court of Appeal in The Hague has made that very clear by its recent judgment of 7th June 2016.

Total Cleaning Aruba has entered an employment agreement for limited time with an Employee as of  1st June 2015 . On July 27th 2015 an incident had occurred between the Employee and Total Cleaning. Total Cleaning sent a letter of resignation on that same day to the Employee, stating that Employee is dismissed with immediate effect.

In the letter of dismissal the following grounds for dismissal were listed: the refusal to perform work, damages resulting from his refusal (for the project he was working at) and having actively created a bad atmosphere at work by multiple statements of the Employee.

The Employee requested annulment of his dismissal in court as well as continuation of payment of wages by the Employer.

The District Court (Rechtbank) rejected the claims of the Employee.

The Employee appealed against that judgment. The appeal court ruled as follows:

Total Cleaning lacked to factually substantiate that and what the statements have been of the Employee that could actually be a serious cause for summary dismissal. As the Employer didn’t point out explicitly in his letter of resignation how the summary dismissal was substantiated by the various grounds of dismissal – in combination and or by the various  grounds on their own, there wasn’t sufficient cause for a dismissal with immediate effect.

The appeal pointed out that regarding the staying away from work and refusing to perform his duty the Employer should have warned the Employee very clearly about the possible consequences of staying away from work without proper permission.

The Appeal Court ruled that the summary dismissal was unjustified and as several months had passed in the meantime and reinstating the Employee was nog longer possible (as the period for the employment agreement for limited time had lapsed) the Employer had to pay adequate compensation to the Employee, being the total salary for the remainder of his contract, from July 27th 2015, until 3rd December 2015 increased by the 50% statutory increase requested by the Employee.    

It goes without saying that if Total Cleaning had consulted an employment law specialist before dismissing the Employee, it would have saved the Employer a lot of money and trouble!

Dutch employment matters are completely different from other legal systems around the world. Make sure you are well informed before you take action. As time is of the essence not only in summary dismissals but in many employment matters (there are many short statutory deadlines within the employment law, especially for legal actions) contact a specialized employment lawyer as soon as the problem presents itself. I will gladly assist you in any employment matter.