What if the Dismissal Protection Act does not apply?
As a rule, the Termination Protection Act applies to an employment relationship if the employer employs more than ten full-time employees. This results in many advantages for the employee in the dismissal protection process. However, employees who do not enjoy this privilege should not throw in the towel without further ado.
The declaration of a termination is subject to certain requirements. For example, the notice of termination must be in writing and must be (demonstrably) received by the employee. Even though this should be common knowledge, mistakes do happen here from time to time. From our practice, we know of many cases in which even such simple things go wrong, for example because the signature is simply forgotten or the notice of termination is only declared verbally. In the hectic pace of day-to-day business, it’s easy to make a mistake, especially in smaller companies.
Other sources of error are the calculation of the notice period and the wording of the notice. In the case of the latter, things can get particularly tricky, as sometimes minor linguistic deviations can result in major differences. Here, it always depends on the examination in the individual case.
If it is often not possible to completely avoid termination despite taking action against such errors, it is at least possible to delay the termination for a certain period of time or to negotiate a severance payment with the employer.
The verification of the legality of a termination should in any case be carried out by a lawyer. We will be happy to assist you with our experience.
It is essential to note that an action against a termination must be filed at the labor court (e.g. Schweinfurt or Würzburg) within three weeks of receipt of the termination notice!
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