A social and healthcare worker’s disclosure of confidential information to the daughter of a citizen did not justify summary dismissal.

Skrevet af

As part of employees’ usual duties in their employment relationship, they must show the required degree of confidentiality regarding confidential matters of which they become aware during the employment. In addition, it is laid down in the Public Administration Act and the Trade Secrets Act, among others, what information is considered confidential. The question in this industrial arbitration case was whether a breach of the duty of confidentiality could justify summary dismissal.

The case concerned a social and healthcare worker who was employed in a private-sector company providing home care services to citizens on behalf of municipalities. According to the social and healthcare worker’s employment contract, she was bound by a strict duty of confidentiality with regard to citizens’ affairs and a breach of this duty would be considered as gross misconduct.

After a telephone call with the daughter of a citizen, the social and healthcare worker sent the daughter a screen print from the online healthcare system showing the citizen’s name and social security number, information on changes in the home care services, etc.

The reason for sending the screen print was that the citizen’s daughter had called the social and healthcare worker to complain about changes in the home care services, so the social and healthcare worker decided to send the screen print to prove to the daughter that she was not responsible for the changes in the home care services.

After that, the employer summarily dismissed the social and healthcare worker for breach of the duty of confidentiality, and then the social and healthcare worker’s trade union initiated an industrial arbitration case.

Summary dismissal was unfair – but dismissal was fair
The umpire found that it constituted a breach of the social and healthcare worker’s duty of confidentiality when she sent the screen print to the citizen’s daughter, because the information about the citizen should have been kept confidential.

In the assessment of whether this constituted gross misconduct, the umpire emphasised that the information in the specific context was not of a particularly sensitive nature and that the social and healthcare worker had been faced with a difficult situation where she tried to explain the decision to change the home care services to the citizen’s daughter.

The umpire also took into account that the citizen’s daughter most likely already knew the information and that the social and healthcare worker had sent the screen print in an attempt to prevent further misunderstandings. Against this background, the umpire found that the breach was not sufficiently serious for the summary dismissal to be justified.

Even though the summary dismissal was unjustified, the umpire found that the breach of the duty of confidentiality did justify a dismissal based on the fact that, among other things, the social and healthcare worker had previously been given warnings regarding her behaviour and way of communicating.

The company was therefore ordered to pay salary during the notice period, but the social and healthcare worker’s claim for compensation for unfair dismissal was dismissed.

Norrbom Vinding notes

• that the award shows that even though breaches of the duty of confidentiality are generally a serious matter, a summary dismissal is conditional on the breach being material, which depends on a specific assessment, regardless of what may be stated in the employment contract. 

The content of the above is not, and should not be a substitute for legal advice.