• The Regional Labor Court of Hamburg’s ruling in a case involving the termination of a radiation protection officer underscores the importance of verifying an employee’s scope of duties before assigning the employee a task.
• Only the failure to comply with directions that fall within an employee’s area of responsibility can give rise to consequences under employment law, such as written warnings and, where applicable, termination.

The employee is a qualified chemist employed by the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie (BSH)), where she had been appointed as a radiation protection officer. The BSH issued two written warnings against the employee and subsequently effected an extraordinary termination with a notice period. The reason: She had failed to amend a radiation protection instruction despite her manager’s direction to do so. Specifically, she was required to revise the document to incorporate gender-sensitive language and to include a particular clarification.

At first instance, the Labor Court of Hamburg (Arbeitsgericht (ArbG)) had already ruled that the written warnings must be removed from the employee’s personnel file (Ref. No. 4 Ca 62/25) and that the termination was invalid (Ref. No. 4 Ca 53/25). The BSH appealed both judgments to the LAG—without success.

On February 5, 2026, the LAG upheld the first instance judgments. Notably, the court did not address whether the employee could have been validly...

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