Parking ticket 0 – 1 Summary dismissal

A parking service assistant was employed by a municipality. A few years later, he started a flex job and got covered by a new collective agreement. He never received a new employment contract.

After several years of employment, he got a parking ticket. But the employee could access the municipality’s parking system and canceled his own parking ticket. When the municipality found out, he was immediately told that the intention was to summarily dismiss him.

The employee applied to have the parking ticket canceled, which it was, six months later. He then tried to have the municipality reconsider the summary dismissal. The municipality chose to uphold the summary dismissal, as they still considered it to be a gross breach of trust on the employee’s part.

Missing employment certificate to the rescue

The Danish High Court found that the municipality could summarily dismiss the employee. Despite the relatively modest size of the parking ticket, the cancellation was equivalent to theft from the workplace and a gross breach of trust. It did not change the situation that the parking ticket was later canceled, as the employee did not know that it would be when he canceled it.

However, the employee received a compensation of DKK 2,500 for not having received a new contract. The court emphasized that the missing contract did not have any specific impact for the employee. When he started the new job, he discussed the salary and conditions with his manager verbally. Therefore, he did not ask for a new contract. Nonetheless, the municipality should still have informed him in writing about the new conditions.

IUNO’s opinion

Theft is a gross breach of trust, and therefore, it typically justifies a summary dismissal. In this case, the cancellation of the parking ticket was still a gross breach of trust, even though it was later canceled. Previous cases also show that a summary dismissal is usually justified even if the amount of what is stolen is relatively insignificant.

IUNO recommends that companies take the right precautions and measures to detect gross breaches of trust. If companies become aware of any suspicious activity, it is important not to be passive. Even a few days of inaction can make the summary dismissal unlawful, so companies should react to the employee’s misconduct as soon as it is discovered.

We have previously written about the new rules on employment conditions, here.

[The Danish Eastern High Court’s judgment of 31 October 2023 in case BS-36627/2022-OLR]