No Legally Valid Summary Dismissal for Employee who had Overslept

After an employee had overslept, the employer had kicked in the front door of the employee’s home and had entered into his home and bedroom. When the employee did not resume work the next day, the employer wrongly summarily dismissed him.
Since 2021, an employee had worked for an employer as a driver. At the end of June 2023, the employer went to the employee's home around four in the morning, kicked in the front door of the employee’s home, entered the home and entered the employee's bedroom.
Two weeks later, the employer wrote a WhatsApp message to the employee in which he said that a colleague had, in vain, rang the bell at the employee's door at 4:15 a.m. trying to wake him up, but that neither knocking nor calling had led to any response, after which, at 4:45 a.m., the employer himself had gone to the employee’s home, had, finally, kicked in the door and had woken the employee because he was concerned about him. The employer then is said to have undertaken to compensate for the damage to the door, after which he had left the house immediately.
In the same WhatsApp message, the employer wrote that he confirmed the employee's dismissal retroactively from the day following the day of the incident, because the employee had failed to come to work without any notice for two weeks after that day and because he had told a colleague that it was not his intention to resume working either. Another two weeks later, the employer confirmed the retroactive termination of the employment contract by letter.
The employee accepted the dismissal, but requested the Sub-district Court to order the employer to pay compensation for the early termination of the employment contract, the transitional allowance and fair compensation. The employer defended himself by arguing that the employee had been summarily dismissed for urgent reasons.
The Sub-district Court, however, ruled that the summary dismissal was not legally valid.
The Sub-district Court assumed the dismissal on the day following the incident, because the employer had stated that he had retroactively dismissed the employee from that particular day and because the employee had also stated that, based on a conversation with the employer on that particular day, he assumed he had been fired.
Thus, the failure to come to work for two weeks had occurred after the summary dismissal and therefore could not be the reason for dismissal.
The Sub-district Court considered it understandable that the employee had not immediately resumed his work, given the fact that the employer had kicked in the door of his home and had entered into his home and bedroom. The employer should have entered into a conversation with the employee first to discuss the incident before calling on the employee to resume work. Not until after the employer had subsequently warned the employee that non-attendance could lead to dismissal, the issue could be addressed.
Furthermore, according to the Sub-district Court , it is incorrect that the employee had failed to react in any way for two weeks. As It turned out, it had precisely been the employee who had tried, in vain, to contact the employer. Moreover, according to the Sub-district Court, there was no evidence for the existence of the employee’s statement to his colleagues that he no longer wanted to work for the employer.
Therefore the employer has to pay a fixed compensation amount, due to the early termination of the employment contract. This amount is equal to the gross salary up to the day when the employer could have terminated the employment contract while observing the notice period. The employer also has to pay the transitional allowance. And, since, according to the law, an invalid summary dismissal is per definition seriously culpable, the employer also has to pay an equitable compensation of € 7,500.
In determining the amount of this equitable compensation, the Sub-district Court, among other things, took into account that the employee had found another job at the end of September 2023, and that it had insufficiently been substantiated that the incident had traumatised the employee.

This ruling is for anyone who wonders if employment law is boring...