The Regional Labor Court of Hamm (judgment dated May 11, 2021 – 6 Sa 1260/20) has ordered a company to pay a former employee 1,000 euros in damages pursuant to Article 82 of the GDPR. The decision of the Regional Labor Court thus joins a series of previous labor court decisions on damages under the GDPR in connection with requests for information under data protection law.
In the case decided by the Regional Labor Court of Hamm, the plaintiff had asserted a claim for information under the “General Data Protection Regulation with regard to all data stored by you, in particular the data relating to the recording of working hours” against her then employer in January 2020. According to Article 12 (3) of the GDPR, data controllers must generally comply with requests for information within one month of receipt. However, the defendant company did not send the requested timesheets and timesheets to the plaintiff until August 2020.
In the context of a termination dispute, the plaintiff used the company’s response to her request for information as an opportunity to claim non-material damages, the amount of which she left to the discretion of the court. The Herne Labor Court, as the initial instance, rejected the corresponding claim. The Regional Labor Court of Hamm, on the other hand, upheld the claim and ordered the company to pay €1000 in non-material damages pursuant to Article 82 (1) of the GDPR.
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