A cancellation must be sent in writing to be valid. But what if a photo of the letter of termination arrives via Whatsapp?
If a cancellation is sent in the form of a photo via WhatsApp, it is not valid. This is shown by a judgment by the Munich Regional Labor Court (Az. 3 Sa 362/21), to which Bund-Verlag refers.
In the case under discussion, an employer fired an employee without notice because he had come to work drunk. The employee received the notice via WhatsApp.
The employer had photographed the signed letter of termination and sent the photo to the man via Messenger.
Termination is only possible in writing
The employee complained that, from his point of view, the notice of termination was not in the required written form and asserted salary claims. The LAG Munich ruled in favor of the plaintiff:
The termination without notice sent via Whatsapp is therefore void because it violates the written form requirement.
According to Bund-Verlag, the termination of an employment relationship must always be in writing (§126 Para. 1 and §623 BGB). This is intended to guarantee legal certainty for the contracting parties. According to the judgement, an electronically transmitted copy of the letter of termination, for example by fax or messenger, does not meet the requirement.
According to the information, the written form requirement is only met if the letter of termination has been signed by the employer personally with a name signature or a notarized hand sign. This document must then be sent to the recipient accordingly.
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No exception due to unknown address
The court also did not accept the employer’s argument that the employee had not communicated his current address, so that he could not send the notice of termination by post.
The employer had not explained when or how it had asked the employee to provide his current address. An exceptional situation was accordingly not justified.