An employee who resigned from his employment contract with immediate effect must pay damages to the employer under Section 7:677 of the Dutch Civil Code. There was no urgent cause, and the employment contract could not be terminated prematurely.
Facts
The employee joined Bema on 1 January 2020 under a fixed-term contract as a warehouse worker. On 1 August 2020, the contract was extended until 31 July 2021. On 21 June 2021, Bema informed the employee by letter that the contract would not be extended further. The employee then no longer wanted to come to work. On 30 June 2021, he resigned with immediate effect, even though the contract could not be terminated prematurely. Bema sought payment of compensation for irregular termination (Section 7:677(4) BW) and repayment of wages wrongly paid for days not worked and holiday hours taken in excess of accrual.
Ruling
The employee acknowledged that he had resigned with immediate effect. The parties had already had lingering frustrations over travel-expense reimbursement, and when Bema then informed him the contract would not be extended, he no longer wanted to work for Bema.
The employment contract contained no early-termination option. The employee could terminate the contract before 31 July 2021 only if urgent cause existed (Section 7:677 BW). The mere fact that he might have received insufficient travel-expense reimbursement – even if that were established – does not meet the standard of urgent cause. The employee had therefore terminated the contract irregularly, and owed Bema fixed statutory damages as a result.
The amount of damages equals the wages for the period the contract would otherwise have run had it ended by operation of law (i.e., wages for the period from 30 June to 31 July 2021). Since his salary was EUR 2,000 gross per month, he owed this amount in damages. The subdistrict court rejected his argument that net, rather than gross, salary should be used.
In addition, the employee had taken more holiday days than he had accrued, and had wrongly received salary for the period from 28 to 30 June 2021. He had to repay both amounts, with statutory interest.
This ruling underlines the importance of properly terminating an employment contract – including for employees.
For the full ruling, click here (in Dutch).
Questions about the above?
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