Private Detective Weinheim, Germany | Private Investigator in Weinheim –

Kurtz Detective Agency Germany*

Third-Best Detective Agency in Germany in the “Wirtschaftswoche” Service Provider Ranking

Kurtz Detective Agency is at your service in Weinheim with a professional team of detectives and a wide range of investigative methods. These include, among others, surveillance, interviews, research, IT forensic examinations, counter-surveillance measures, corporate infiltration, the use of man-trailing dogs, evidence collection, and many more. Receive free and non-binding advice from our Weinheim agency: +49 621 9535 4001.

 

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Case Study from Weinheim:

Employee Evasion | Preventing Delivery of a Termination Letter

Legislation, and even more so labour courts, often make life extremely difficult for employers, while employees enjoy various privileges even in cases of gross misconduct. Termination is particularly sensitive: employers wishing to terminate employment face numerous hurdles, such as:

 

• Is the termination sufficiently justified?

• Is it socially fair?

• Were the deadlines observed?

• Was the termination properly delivered?

 

Even a single loophole can lead labour courts—according to the experience of our Weinheim detectives—to overturn a termination, forcing companies to reinstate employees who are unproductive, absentee-prone, criminal, or acting against company interests, despite it usually being unreasonable. Once reinstated, employees often call in sick immediately, leaving the company uncertain about their intentions and lacking planning security.

 

In this case, a company in Weinheim attempted to terminate an employee who had been employed for six months and on sick leave for five months. The termination letter could not be delivered because the employee had moved without providing a forwarding address. Phone contact was also impossible as the previous number was now answered by an unknown third party. This could be considered a disloyal prevention of delivery, as the employee failed to notify the employer of the address change. The Federal Labour Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht) supported this view in a 2005 ruling (Case No.: 2 AZR 366/04). However, ordinary labour courts and regional labour courts often hold differing opinions, and employers who do not challenge decisions up to the BAG risk their termination being rejected. For example, the Regional Labour Court Munich ruled differently the year before (Case No.: 10 Sa 246/04).

Digression: “Recipient Unknown” Often Not Sufficient

In principle, if an employee prevents timely delivery of a termination through self-inflicted circumstances—such as a missing mailbox, incorrectly labelled mailbox or doorbell, providing a false address, not collecting or collecting late—the delivery is considered effective. In the Munich case, a termination during the probationary period was returned with the postal remark "recipient unknown, moved."

 

During the ensuing trial, the employee’s claim that the mailbox had been correctly labelled was considered sufficient, because: "The burden of proof for all facts supporting the objection that the employee invokes delayed receipt in bad faith lies with the terminating party." The counter-testimony of the postal employee was not given decisive weight: "Even if it can be assumed from the witness statement that nameplates were removed from the mailbox at the time of attempted delivery and replaced shortly after, this does not prove that the claimant caused it. While it seems improbable that a third party committed such an act, it is also not possible to unequivocally attribute it to the claimant under the circumstances." This extreme decision illustrates the sometimes convoluted arguments employers face in court.

 

Main Reasoning for the Court’s Decision in Favour of the Employee: "The employer can only derive favourable legal consequences from a non-received declaration in good faith if he has done everything necessary and reasonably possible to ensure that the declaration reached the recipient. This generally includes immediately attempting another delivery upon learning of the failed delivery." In other words, the court would only side with the employer if additional termination notices were sent before the end of the notice period—to an address known to be undeliverable. Pure nonsense in practice.

Mailbox as Alleged Residence

Due to such borderline experiences with labour courts, the client of our Weinheim detectives wanted to be absolutely sure that delivery was impossible and that a valid, deliverable address for the target could be established.

 

The target originated from the Scottish regional centre Perth, about an hour north of Edinburgh, but had lived in Germany for many years. Investigations revealed that the individual had never actually resided at the address registered with the employer. The property was instead a business building, hosting, among others, a company providing a postal service. A test inquiry with the company confirmed this, and it was further verified that the individual had not been seen there for over two months.

Incorrect Data Registered at Multiple Agencies

Officially, the target had last been registered in Bensheim, but had been deregistered as "unknown, moved" five months prior to the start of our investigation. The landlord contacted shortly thereafter confirmed the previous tenancy in Bensheim, and stated that the individual had moved out only three months ago. Previous addresses included Munich (1990s), Würzburg, and a small village near Aschaffenburg; residents and landlords of those addresses were unable to provide current information.

 

After the six-week continued payment of wages expired, the target received sick pay from AOK Bavaria, which still had the 20-year-old Munich address on file. No entries were found in the debtor registers of relevant courts (Aschaffenburg, Bensheim, Munich, Würzburg) and the German Federal Pension Insurance registered only two employment contracts: the one to be terminated and another that lasted just one month before the employer’s engagement of our Weinheim detectives.

All Options Exhausted, but a “But” Remains

Since the current location could not be determined via database searches, our client instructed the detective agency in Weinheim to abandon this approach. Instead, the last step involved checking all three previously reported addresses and the postal service address on-site. Our Mannheim detectives went to Weinberg, the Frankfurt team to Aschaffenburg, and Munich and Würzburg detectives checked city addresses. The goal: inspect and photograph all mailboxes and doorbells. No name of the target was found at any location.

 

Thus, the client had exhausted all reasonable avenues for delivering the termination notice. However, a problem from the outset remained unresolved: the employment contract did not include an employee obligation to update their residence. Whether this constitutes an automatic secondary duty in employment contracts is legally and judicially unclear. Consequently, this remains one of the potential pitfalls for employers in German courts.

Examples of Other Assignment Locations of Our Detectives in the Rhine-Neckar District:

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• Detective for Brühl (Baden)
• Detective for Dossenheim
• Detective for Eberbach
• Detective for Edingen-Neckarhausen
• Detective for Eppelheim
• Detective for Hemsbach
• Detective for Hockenheim
• Detective for Ketsch
• Detective for Ladenburg
• Detective for Leimen
• Detective for Neckargemünd
• Detective for Oftersheim
• Detective for Sandhausen
• Detective for Schriesheim
• Detective for Schwetzingen
• Detective for Sinsheim
• Detective for Walldorf
• Detective for Wiesloch
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