Termination With Reasonable Cause Is Possible As The Employer’s Continuous Execution Proceedings Due To The Employee Causes Negativity In The Workplace
9th Civil Chamber 2019/94 E. , 2019/10769 K.
“Case Law Text”
COURT : ISTANBUL DISTRICT COURT OF JUSTICE 30TH CIVIL CHAMBER
THE CASE :
Plaintiff requested a decision on the invalidity of the termination, reinstatement and legal consequences.
The local court decided to accept the lawsuit.
The defendant’s lawyer filed an appeal against the acceptance decision of the Court of First Instance.
30th Civil Chamber of the Istanbul Regional Court of Appeals rejected the appeal of the defendant’s lawyer on the merits.
Decision of the 30th Civil Chamber of the Istanbul Regional Court of Appeals was appealed by the defendant’s lawyer within the time limit, and the file was examined after the report prepared by the Examining Judge for the case file was listened, the file was examined, and the necessity was discussed and considered:
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT
A) Summary of the Claimant’s Request:
The plaintiff’s attorney claimed that he worked as a worker in the logistics return department of the defendant company’s … workplace from 13.05.2013 until 22.07.2016, when his employment contract was terminated without a valid reason, and that his client’s employment contract was terminated without a valid reason with the termination notice dated 22.07.2016, and requested a decision on the invalidity of the termination and the reinstatement of the plaintiff.
B) Summary of the Defendant’s Response:
The defendant’s attorney argued that the plaintiff’s employment contract was terminated for a valid reason as a result of the continuity of the employment contract becoming unpredictable for the employer as a result of his behaviors that negatively affected the workflow, that the plaintiff had a structure that exhibited irresponsible behaviors that negatively affected the work organization by not participating in the working hours without an excuse, that the plaintiff had a large amount and amount of salary garnishment warrants, and that the follow-up of the warrants increased the workload and created a negative impact on the work planning, and requested the dismissal of the lawsuit.
C) Summary of the Local Court Decision:
The court stated that no minutes were submitted regarding when and on which days the plaintiff was late, and although it was claimed that the plaintiff frequently took leave, no leave documents showing the leaves taken by the plaintiff were submitted, and no concrete evidence was submitted as to how the plaintiff’s taking leave led to a production stop or slowdown in the workplace, and again, the workload of the plaintiff due to the garnishment of his salary was made as a ground for termination, but from the witness statements listened to, it was stated that there were personnel working in the defendant workplace despite the salary garnishment,
In addition, it was decided to accept the lawsuit on the grounds that the garnishment of the employee’s salary is a heavy sanction to justify the termination, there was no warning to the plaintiff in this regard, the exit code reported by the defendant to the SSI was reported as “4 – Termination of the indefinite-term employment contract by the employer without just cause”, clearly the defendant notified the SSI that the plaintiff’s employment contract was terminated unfairly.
D) Application for appeal :
The defendant’s counsel filed an appeal against the decision of the court of first instance.
E) Summary of the Decision of the Regional Court of Appeal:
According to the workplace file sample submitted by the defendant employer, it was decided by the Regional Court of Appeal that the plaintiff was penalized with a warning penalty upon the absenteeism report dated 21.01.2014, and that the issues regarding the plaintiff’s absenteeism, coming to work late and leaving work early, which were then used as grounds for termination, could not be proved by minutes such as absenteeism minutes, and that the minutes dated 08.07. 2016 dated 08.07.2016 was not grounds for termination,
and the witnesses listened to by the defendant are still working at the workplace, so their statements alone are not sufficient, the plaintiff used his leaves with the approval of the defendant company official, the plaintiff was not given any notice before the termination due to 10 salary garnishments, and it was decided to reject the appeal application of the defendant’s attorney on the grounds that it could not be concretely proved that the plaintiff’s behavior caused negativities in the workplace.
F) Appeal :
The decision was appealed by the defendant’s counsel within the legal period.
G) Grounds:
There is a dispute between the parties as to whether the employment contract was rightfully terminated by the employer due to the employee’s behavior contrary to integrity and loyalty.
Article 18 of the Labor Law No. 4857 authorizes the employer to terminate the employment contract for reasons arising from the employee’s behavior and competence. The purpose of the termination due to the employee’s behavior is not to punish or sanction the employee’s behaviors contrary to the employment contract, but to avoid the risk that the employee will continue to violate the contractual obligations and repeat them. In order for the employment contract to be terminated due to the employee’s behavior, there must be a behavior of the employee that violates the employment contract and breaches the contract.
If the employee has acted in breach of the contract through his/her misconduct and as a result, the employment relationship has been adversely affected, there will be a valid termination arising from the employee’s conduct. On the other hand, since no responsibility can be imposed on the employee due to the employee’s behavior contrary to the contract, which is not based on the employee’s fault and negligence, the valid reason for termination arising from the employee’s behavior cannot be mentioned.
The reasons arising from the employee’s behavior and competence are the reasons specified in Article 25 of the same Law, as well as the reasons that, although not of this nature, significantly adversely affect the performance of work in the workplace. In cases where the reasons arising from the behavior or incompetence of the employee, where the continuation of the employment relationship is important for the employer and cannot be reasonably expected, it will be necessary to accept that the termination is based on valid reasons.
In the concrete dispute, the plaintiff’s employment contract was terminated on 22.7. 2016 dated 22.7.2016 with the termination letter “During the continuation of your work, the work flow is negatively affected due to the fact that you frequently come late to work citing family matters and ask for permission to leave work before working hours, as well as your frequent absenteeism, and this situation also disrupts the peace of work in the workplace as it causes your other colleagues to need more labor,
It has also been determined that there are many enforcement proceedings against you by various creditors and garnishments have been placed on your wages, and this situation also negatively affects the work process and workplace organization in a way that causes significant loss of time in the human resources, legal and accounting departments. Your written defense was requested due to your behaviors of this nature, and since you did not submit any written defense, …. No. 4857 was terminated on 22.07.2016 based on Articles 17 and 18 of the Labor Law No. 4857”.
From the evidence in the file, although the allegations that the plaintiff frequently came to work late and wanted to leave early from working hours could not be proven by the evidence and witness statements submitted to the file by the defendant, it is understood from the information and documents in the file that there are 12 salary attachment letters written to the defendant employer by the enforcement offices on various dates, that the plaintiff, who caused the employer to be constantly subjected to enforcement proceedings, caused negativities in the workplace, and that the termination carried out by the defendant employer based on the reasons explained is not justified but based on valid reasons.
For the explained reason, it is not appropriate to accept the lawsuit on written grounds instead of rejecting it.
Pursuant to Article 20/3 of the Labor Law No. 4857, our Chamber has decided as follows.
JUDGMENT :
With the justification explained above;
1. The decisions of the 28th Civil Chamber of the Istanbul Regional Court of Appeals and the Court of First Instance shall be reversed and annulled,
2. Dismissal of the case,
3. To deduct the 29,20 TL advance fee paid by the plaintiff from the 44,40 TL decision-order fee to be taken, and to collect the remaining 15,20 TL decision-order fee from the plaintiff and to register it to the treasury,
4. The judicial expenses incurred by the plaintiff shall be left on the plaintiff, and the judicial expenses of 300,00 TL incurred by the defendant shall be collected from the plaintiff and paid to the defendant,
5. That the attorney fee of 2.275,00 TL determined according to the tariff in force on the date of the decision be taken from the plaintiff and given to the defendant,
6. The prepaid appeal fee shall be returned to the defendant upon request, and the file shall be sent to the Court of First Instance and a copy of the decision shall be sent to the Regional Court of Appeal,
It was unanimously decided on 13.05.2019.
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