No Entitlement to Continued Pay for an Employee Who Reports Sick After a Denied Leave Request

Labor Court Heilbronn, Judgment of 27 March 2026 – 7 Ca 314/25

Where an employee (repeatedly) reports sick for the exact period immediately following a denied leave request, the evidentiary value of a medical certificate of incapacity for work is undermined, as this gives rise to serious doubts regarding the alleged illness.

Facts

The employee was employed as a production and warehouse worker at an animal feed manufacturer. In the summer of 2025, he was on approved annual leave from 28 July 2025 to 15 August 2025, which he spent together with his partner in Romania. While still on leave, he contacted his supervisor by telephone on several occasions requesting an extension of his leave by an additional week (18 to 22 August 2025). As justification, he stated that his partner was receiving inpatient hospital treatment and the date of her discharge was uncertain. The employer declined the extension. On the morning of 18 August 2025 – only a few hours before his scheduled shift – he reported sick, presenting a medical certificate of incapacity for work from his general practitioner, for precisely the period for which he had previously sought, without success, an extension of his leave. A comparable sequence of events had already occurred in 2024 – at that time, too, the employee had been certified unfit for work for exactly one week immediately following his three-week summer holiday. Against this background, the employer refused to provide continued payment of remuneration for the period of the sick note from 18 to 22 August 2025. The employee brought an action seeking continued payment of remuneration in the amount of EUR 700.21 gross plus interest.

Decision

The Labor Court Heilbronn dismissed the action for continued payment of remuneration in its entirety, holding that the evidentiary value of the medical certificate of incapacity for work presented had been undermined by the overall circumstances. In the court’s view, several indicia were decisive: the claimant had first unsuccessfully attempted to extend his annual leave for the exact period for which he immediately thereafter reported unfit for work. The sick note was, moreover, submitted only a few hours before the scheduled start of work. In addition, a practically identical sequence of events had already occurred in the previous year, such that the same pattern was discernible over two consecutive years. As a consequence of the undermining of the evidentiary value, and in accordance with the principles of graduated burden of presentation and proof, it fell to the claimant to substantiate and prove his actual incapacity for work. The claimant was unable to meet these requirements: the general practitioner, examined as a witness, could no longer recall the specific treatment situation and was, in particular, unable to state whether he had personally examined the claimant or had merely issued the certificate of incapacity for work on the basis of a telephone description. The medical treatment records contained only a diagnosis but no documented examination findings. On the basis of this evidentiary position, the court was unable to reach the degree of conviction required under Section 286 of the Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO) that the claimant had in fact been unfit for work due to illness during the disputed period.

Practical Tip

The evidentiary value of a medical certificate of incapacity for work is not unassailable. The employer has the possibility of rebutting it by presenting concrete facts that give rise to serious and objectively comprehensible doubts regarding the alleged illness. If such rebuttal succeeds, the burden of proof is reversed: the employee must then prove his or her incapacity for work independently. In concrete terms, this means that the employee must set out in detail – while releasing the treating physicians from their duty of confidentiality – what illness existed, what health impairments were present, and what medical treatment was administered.

The decision of the Labor Court Heilbronn is consistent with a line of case law that is favorable from an employer’s perspective. The circumstances present here (failed leave request, recurring pattern) now stand alongside other constellations in which, according to the case law of the labor courts, rebuttal of the evidentiary value of a certificate of incapacity for work may be considered: for example, incapacity for work covering the notice period or the performance of activities during sick leave that are incompatible with the stated illness.

Employers may accordingly be justified in refusing continued payment of remuneration even where a certificate of incapacity for work has been presented, and should always examine in each individual case whether the conditions for rebutting the evidentiary value are met.