Hospital must pay nurse €23,000 for dismissal over “fuck off spray” gifts to colleagues
A Gelderland hospital was not allowed to summarily dismiss a nurse who gave her colleagues inappropriate parting gifts when she moved from one department to another. The gifts, which included “fuck off spray” to “keep the assholes away,” were not enough for immediate dismissal, the court in Arnhem said in a ruling published on Friday. The hospital must pay the nurse over 23,000 euros in compensation.
The nurse started working at the Gelderland healthcare institution in 2019. She was supposed to transfer to another department last autumn. On her last night shift, she left 28 farewell gifts to her colleagues. These included pens with texts like “Can't fix stupid, but we can sedate it” and air fresheners with the text “Fuck off spray - Keeps all the idiots and assholes away up to 4 hours.”
Her employer did not find the gifts funny calling them “very much in conflict with the organization’s standards of conduct” and “offensive, insulting, hurtful, and disrespectful to colleagues.” The healthcare institution fired her on the spot.
The nurse took the matter to court, and with success. The subdistrict court in Arnhem ruled in her favor on all counts, according to the ruling published on Friday.
According to the court, the farewell gifts were “embarrassing and inappropriate” and the nurse should have refrained from giving them. But a summary dismissal was far too severe a reaction. “A dismissal on the spot is the nuclear option and should not be used too quickly and too lightly,” the court said. The healthcare institution should have suspended her or asked a court for permission to dismiss her in the regular manner, the court said.
The nurse does not want her job back, so the healthcare institution must now pay her a total of over 23,000 euros in severance and compensation. That includes a regular severance payment of 7,000 euros, the woman’s salary for her notice period amounting to almost 12,000 euros, and over 4,000 in compensation for the wrongful dismissal. The hospital must also pay 1,300 euros in legal costs.
