LAG Cologne Ruling: Home-Office Revocation Needs Justification

Groundbreaking ruling by the Cologne Regional Labor Court: a working-from-home revocation must be well justified.

⚖️ Judgment

The Cologne Regional Labor Court (LAG) has ruled that the revocation of a home office agreement by an employer must be objectively well justified – especially when it involves relocating the employee to a distant workplace.

📜 Background

In this case in the automotive industry, the employer instructed a project manager to work at a new site 500 kilometres away after the closure of their original location. The employee, who previously worked from home about 80% of the time, refused and filed a dismissal-protection lawsuit, arguing that revoking his home-office privilege required proper justification – which the employer failed to provide.

📖 Court's reasoning

The court deemed the relocation invalid, stating that it violated the principle of „reasonable discretion" under Section 106 of the Trade Regulation Act (GewO). There were no sufficient objective reasons to justify both the revocation of the home office agreement and the relocation.

The alternative dismissal with modified terms was also ruled invalid, as there were no urgent operational requirements under the Dismissal Protection Act (KSchG).

✅ Conclusion

This ruling emphasises that employers must present clear, objective interests when revoking home-office agreements, especially if such actions result in significant changes for the employee. The decision is particularly significant for employees who have relocated based on the availability of remote work.

Read the original article on LTO.

---

Detailed legal justification

When a business location is closed, it is deemed unreasonable for an employer to revoke an employee's home-office agreement and transfer them to a new location 500 kilometres away. This was decided by the LAG Cologne (Judgment of July 11, 2024, Ref. 6 Sa 579/23).

The LAG Cologne found both the relocation and the alternative dismissal with modified terms invalid. The relocation violated the principle of „reasonable discretion" under Section 106 GewO. While Section 106 GewO grants employers the right to instruct employees on when, where, and how to work, this authority is not unlimited and must respect reasonable discretion.

Relocating the employee from their home, where they were „deeply rooted in family, logistics, social circles and cultural ties", to an office 500 km away required „overriding objective interests on the part of the employer".

While the closure of the business location could constitute an urgent operational requirement, this did not justify revoking the employee's home-office agreement. The employer had failed to present any substantial reasons for the revocation.

The invalidity of the alternative dismissal with modified terms was based on Section 1(1) KSchG: it was „not due to urgent operational requirements as outlined in Section 1(2) KSchG".

Further information

Want to set up remote work in your company in a legally compliant way? Our products & services support you. Book a consultation.