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Important Notice in Case of Dismissal

Once a dismissal has been effected, you will be likely to miss several applicable deadlines. For this reason, I recommend that you schedule an appointment immediately. The following deadlines are of particular relevance in case of dismissal:

3 weeks
The statutory deadline to move against unfair dismissal pursuant to Section 4 sentence 1 of the German Unfair Dismissal Act is 3 weeks.  If you fail to observe this deadline, the dismissal is deemed legally valid from the beginning (Section 7 of the German Unfair Dismissal Act). This deadline applies to dismissals with and without notice as well (Section 13 (2) sentence 2 of the German Unfair Dismissal Act).  Failure to observe this deadline means that you will not be able to do anything against the dismissal, as unfair as it may be.  Only in case of rare exceptions, I will be able to help you despite of the expiration of this deadline.

2 weeks
You were pregnant at the time of dismissal or gave birth 4 months or later before dismissal? Your employer was not aware of this? Then you will need to notify the employer of your pregnancy or recent motherhood within 2 weeks in order for the dismissal to become retroactively invalid.

4 days
In some cases, dismissal notices are signed by people without official signature authority on behalf the employer.  If your employer is a company, it is not unlikely that this has happened.  I will be able to clarify this by reviewing the respective commercial register entry.  In this case, you are expected to refuse the acknowledgement of the dismissal, without undue delay, for the reason that an original power of attorney was not provided.  According to case law, 4 days will always suffice. As an average, one week is granted.  If you waited more than 14 days with your refusal letter, than it is quite sure you are late. For reasons of precaution, I recommend to observe the 4 days in each case.

3 days
Upon receipt of a dismissal notice, you will only have 3 days to register in person as a job seeker with the competent labor agency (previously: labor office) (Section 38 (1) sentence 2 Book III German Social Code). This applies to all scenarios where the termination date lies earlier than 3 months in the future. Failure to observe this deadline will result in the labor agency applying a so-called "prohibition period in case of belated job seeker registration" (Section 145 (1) No. 7 Book III German Social Code).

If you speak German, I suggest that you take care of this deadline yourself before you come to the appointment we have scheduled. You will find the address of your competent labor agency here.

It will suffice if you register vial telephone under ++49 (1801) 555 111 (3,9 ct from on the landline in Germany, cellular phone costs may be different), but only if you provide your personal information and the termination date and provided that you attend the appointment the labor agency will schedule at a later point of time. When making use of this possibility, please ask the clerk for his name and for the customer number they will give you.

Commencement of Deadlines:  Receipt of Dismissal Letter
All aforementioned deadlines commence with the receipt of the dismissal letter.  In order to determine the date of receipt, it is irrelevant if you were on vacation or checked your mail several days after insertion of the dismissal notice.  As a safe approach, I recommend to treat the signature date as date of receipt. If the dismissal letter arrived via mail and if you have kept the envelope, I suggest that you assume the day after the postmark date was the date of receipt.

Fischtorplatz 11 - 55116 Mainz - Germany - Telephone: +49 (6131) 143 83 25 - Fax: +49 (6131) 143 83 29 - E-Mail: fs@ra-stoffers.de
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