Comments from a director to a subordinate about ‘nice dress’ are not grounds for dismissal

But regardless of how inappropriate the comments were according to the judge, the summary was not justified. That the sub-district court in Limburg ruled in the case brought by the man. He had been working with the company since last October, for a total salary of 8,000 euros.

Immediately dismissed

Things went wrong in January this year as he failed to perform duties as per the company’s wishes. In addition, according to the company, he did not adhere to agreements, he did not accept when he went against and behaved towards colleagues.

That created distrust in the company. That’s why he wanted to get rid of that, the man was told during a conversation.

After that conversation on January 25, a female colleague came forward with a complaint about her behavior. The company will investigate this and suspend the person for a period of time.

Sexual connotation

That investigation was completed a little less than a week later. And reason enough to immediately dismiss the man, born in 1964. “You have been guilty (…) almost every day of making inappropriate comments about clothing is an appearance, often with a sexual connection, towards another employee that made that employee feel uncomfortable and uncomfortable,” the company wrote in the resignation letter off.

The company takes the issue very seriously because of the position of the director in relation to the colleague. “This employee had a subordinate relationship with you, which prevented this employee from responding to you.”

‘What a nice sweater’

The judge agrees with this. The man himself also admitted in court that he had made the following comments to the colleague.

• “You look so nice today.”
• “What a beautiful dress.”
• “Your hair looks beautiful today.”
• “What a nice sweater.”
• “What does your friend say.”
• “You did your best today.”
• “I like women in suits.”

“Very inappropriate,” the judge ruled, also because the man should have understood that it was more difficult for a subordinate to reject the comments. But the judge believes that dismissal your summary is too harsh a punishment.The company should have given the director a chance to change his behavior.

It is not the severance pay that is required

According to the judge, it doesn’t matter if the man has already been suspended. As the dismissal is not justified, the man is entitled to a separation payment of two months salary and holiday pay. That comes to a total of 17,280 euros.

The man himself had a completely different mind: 103,608 euros to be exact. But it is ‘absolutely enough’ to argue in court why he would be entitled to this. And so it remains at just over 17,000 euros.