Fake vaccination certificates can justify immediate termination

April 30, 2022

The Cologne Labor Court (judgment of March 23.03.2022, 18, Ref: 6830 Ca 21/XNUMX) considered the immediate dismissal of an employee for presenting a fake vaccination certificate to be effective.

1. THE FACT

The plaintiff employee worked for the defendant company, among other things, as a customer service representative. Customers also include nursing facilities. In October 2021, the company informed all employees that from November 2021 only fully vaccinated employees would be allowed to attend customer appointments on site. The plaintiff employee then claimed to the company that she was fully vaccinated. In December 2021, she presented a vaccination certificate that was supposed to confirm this.

During a subsequent check, the employer discovered that the vaccination certificate must be a fake. The batches mentioned in the certificate were only used on the market later. The company issued an extraordinary termination. The employee defended herself against this with a claim for protection against dismissal.

The Cologne Labor Court dismissed the lawsuit and viewed the termination as effective.

2. THE DECISION

According to the Cologne Labor Court, the extraordinary termination is justified by an important reason. The plaintiff was unable to refute the accusation of forging the vaccination certificate.

Forging the vaccination certificate is not just a minor breach of duty. Rather, the plaintiff employee has significantly breached her employment contractual obligations by violating the 2-G rule. In addition, she massively disrupted the relationship of trust. This is an important reason in the sense of § 626 para. 1 BGB period.

There were no data protection considerations to prevent the defendant's submission from being used in court. Due to Section 28b Paragraph 3 IfSG old version, the company was also entitled to compare the data with the publicly available batch data. This was the only way the defendant could reliably check whether there was complete vaccination protection because of the missing QR code.

3. CONCLUSION

The decision is understandable. Due to the violation of rule 2 associated with the forgery and the resulting potential danger to customers, the classification of this violation as an important reason within the meaning of Section 626 Paragraph 1 of the German Civil Code (BGB) appears to be correct.