Nurse summarily dismissed for sexual relationship with a former patient
The employee worked as a nurse at Antes Zorg B.V. (“Antes”). His employment contract was subject to the professional code of conduct for nurses and carers, and Antes’s own code of conduct. A patient had been admitted for several months until March 2020 for psychological and addiction problems. On 15 October 2020, a conversation took place with the employee, after which he was suspended. The reason for the suspension was an incident report concerning opiate registration, printing a photo of a patient, and bullying colleagues. On 23 October 2020, an investigation began into his work account, which revealed pornographic material and various sexually charged emails. It was also found that, during his suspension, he had deleted files. On 17 November 2020, he was summarily dismissed. He stated he had kept in contact with the patient after her treatment ended. There had been email correspondence in which photos were exchanged. He objected to the summary dismissal and sought fair compensation of EUR 144,470.25, the transition payment, and compensation for irregular dismissal. Antes sought payment of fixed statutory damages of EUR 5,674.74.
The subdistrict court ruled that the summary dismissal had been given without delay. It was relevant that Antes had to carry out several investigations, which took considerable time, particularly since the employee refused to grant access to his work account. On the urgent cause itself, the subdistrict court noted that, under the code of conduct, entering into a personal relationship with a patient is not permitted. The employee acknowledged entering into such a relationship, and also that he had sexual contact with her. He had acted in breach of the code of conduct. This is serious, given that he worked in mental healthcare with “dual-diagnosis” patients. The patient was highly vulnerable and in a position of dependence on the employee. Having pornographic material on his work account was also a breach of the code of conduct and impermissible. He acknowledged that such material has no place on a work account. Deleting various files from his work account after his suspension was culpable – he should have understood this was not allowed. By doing so anyway, he denied Antes the ability to carry out a complete investigation. The subdistrict court ruled that he had rightly been summarily dismissed. He is not entitled to a transition payment or fair compensation. The damages sought by Antes were awarded, since the employee, through intent or fault, gave Antes urgent cause to summarily dismiss him.
For the full ruling “Dismissal for a sexual relationship”, click here (in Dutch).
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