Gelderland District Court, 17 December 2025, ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2025:11357
Facts
The employee started working for the employer as a CE-licensed truck driver on 11 June 2021. On 12 December 2023, the employee reported sick.
After the company doctor found her fit for adapted work again in February 2024, she resumed her duties. On 15 March 2024, however, the employee reported fully sick again.
On 21 May 2024, the company doctor advised, given the working relationship between the parties, starting a so-called “track 2” process, aimed at finding suitable work with a different employer.
The working relationship subsequently deteriorated further. Mediation started in December 2024 did not lead to a solution. On 24 February 2025, the UWV (Employee Insurance Agency), in an expert opinion, found that the employer had done insufficient to reintegrate the employee in the period from 12 December 2023 to 8 November 2024.
The employer asked the court to dissolve the employment contract on the ground of a seriously and permanently disrupted working relationship. The employer based this request on the fact that the employee had repeatedly refused to carry out offered suitable (alternative) work and that direct communication with her had been virtually impossible.
Ruling
That the working relationship was not merely disrupted, but seriously and permanently so, is evident from the submitted documents, including the company doctor’s advice, as well as from what the parties stated during the hearing.
Since the employee is unfit for work due to illness, the ban on dismissal during illness, in principle, stands in the way of dissolving the employment contract. Dissolution is nevertheless possible if the request for dissolution is unrelated to the employee’s incapacity for work, or if circumstances exist of such a nature that continuation of the employment contract cannot reasonably be required and its termination is in the employee’s own interest.
The employee argued that the dissolution request was related to her incapacity for work. The employer did not explain or prove otherwise. It could therefore not be ruled out that such a link existed.
Nevertheless, the subdistrict court dissolved the employment contract, because circumstances existed of such a nature that ending the employment was considered to be (partly) in the employee’s own interest. Several reports of the company doctor’s consultations showed that direct contact between the employer and the employee, given the employee’s stress-related symptoms, was undesirable or not possible. They also showed that a return to the employer was not a realistic option and that the continuation of the employment contract was hindering the employee’s recovery.
What does this mean for employers?
Normally, an employment contract may not be terminated while an employee is ill. This is known as the ban on dismissal during illness. In this case, however, the subdistrict court ruled that special circumstances existed that justified terminating the employment contract regardless.
In reaching this ruling, the subdistrict court attached great weight to the company doctor’s advice. This advice contributed to the court’s view that ending the employment contract could also be in an employee’s own interest. As a result, the ban on dismissal during illness did not, in this case, stand in the way of dissolving the employment contract.
Do you have questions about dissolving the employment contract of a sick employee? Please feel free to contact one of our employment lawyers.
Click here for the full ruling (in Dutch).
